I love maths.

Mathematics has been a big part of my life. Under influence of my grandparents, who were both
maths teachers, I developed a great interest in maths, and I’ve always been a positive and passionate
learner. I love solving maths questions, I love learning new concepts and principles, and to me, it feels
like there is always something new and inspiring to be explored whenever I learn maths. I’m certain
that I will enjoy my time studying mathematics at university.

I particularly enjoy learning pure maths. During maths lessons in school with my teachers, I find some
topics fascinating, for example, calculus. It’s really fun and challenging to solve differentiation and
integration questions, but more importantly, as I am being further introduced to the topic by my
teacher, and as I started to do my own research, I was amazed by how calculus is so widely applied
and used, for instance, integration is used in one of Maxwell’s equations to show the contribution of
an electric field around an enclosed path to the rate of change of magnetic flux. I also love geometry
proofs because I feel that I’m very sensitive to shapes and I’m very good at finding hints from the
graph. A question with a combination of all aspects of geometry such as circle theorem, trigonometry
and similarities, to me solving or proving it feels like a detective clearing up a case---- it’s very
gratifying and pleasing. In my opinion, trying to work out such questions allows me to improve my
speed and preciseness in thinking. In fact, not just calculus and geometry. Learning mathematics has
greatly aided me in my other two subjects. My passion and ability to do maths have won me several
awards and achievements. For example, I’ve been getting gold rewards in senior UKMT since I was
in fifth form, and this year I was qualified to sit the British Maths Olympiad round one and eventually
got a distinction. In physics, I achieved gold in British Physics Olympiad this year. In chemistry, I got
a silver in Cambridge Chemistry Challenge

Outside the classroom, I’m still inseparable from maths. In my everyday life, I often just come up
with an interesting maths question, and then I will go on researching about the question, which I often
find other interesting topics along my research, so a lot of things can be learnt incidentally. For
example, once I was wondering if there is an x so that sin x=2, which led me to look into things I
haven’t covered, such as Euler’s number and Taylor expansion. I like watching videos explaining
mathematics, and my favourite mathematician is James Grime. His sense of humour and his ability to
explain maths so well further builds my interest in maths. In addition, I love maths riddles and
puzzles, such as sudoku, sliding puzzles and Rubik’s cube. I think those are very helpful in aiding me
to improve my logic and allowing me to see and solve things from different perspectives.

Besides studying, I enjoy the diversity of school life in the UK. In my school, I have the chance to do
various sports including my favourite and best sport, badminton. As the captain of the team, I’ve led
the team to obtain extraordinary results in many seasons, and also beat some schools for the first time
in history. Music is also a big part of my life. Whenever I feel down, or am stressed by the heavy
workload, I often go to the music school to play the piano or do some singing. I enjoy travelling, and
the best thing to do is to bring a camera and capture all the beautiful details in daily life.

I know that studying mathematics in university is going to be tough, but I think with my ability to
handle a heavy workload and deal with stress, I will enjoy my time doing maths every day and
discussing problems with others. Recently I was reading and working through the book “Towards
Higher Mathematics: A Companion”, and it says: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail
again. Fail better.” It’s true, that growing and learning always come with obstructions and even
failures. But the failures can give me a better sense of why I’m wrong and what I should focus on to
improve. I think I am going to finish a postgraduate university degree, which will help me to open up
my paths and to get a job that I like in the future.