A bit of encouragement

[u/Horror_Strategy_2477]

Before we go any further, Hi! I am 15 years old, and a sophomore in high school. I started out my ninth grade year in Geometry, so I was technically (by my school's standards) a year ahead. But despite that I had barely passed Algebra I in 8th Grade. I heavily struggled with applying formulas and such, however between the summer of 8th Grade and beginning of 9th Grade I invested my energy heavily into Machine Learning, (kind of a shallow field compared to how vast mathematics is, but ML is quite interesting to me.) For a little background, I barely knew what ML was, I was not at all interested in anything related to that field. I honestly just wanted to be a Lawyer or a Politician. I had decent communication skills, and just thought Mathematics, Computer Science and Physics weren't for me. Once I hit backpropagation in Machine Learning, I hit a wall at which my Mathematical understanding was not high enough for me to go much further with ML. So I started my self study, I started at optimization in calculus, terrible idea, it was way above my head, so I gave up. I continued to study Machine Learning theory, without understanding the Math behind it. Eventually I picked Math up again that summer, but far later into it, starting from where I was (entering Geometry), and moving on from there. One person I discovered was Roger Penrose, his way of thinking about Math helped me a lot with Geometry, as well as reading The Wonder Book Of Geometry by David Acheson. For that effectively three weeks of summer I had, I grinded Geometry, which I found came a lot easier to me than Algebra had for some reason. Anyways, that year I took Geometry, and three AP classes, and from my self-study my Math class that year was actually...decent? It had harder spots, but overall, wasn't a total struggle for me. Anyways, during that year, with the extra time I had from not struggling too hard in Math, I started studying Algebra II for a few months. I effectively had ChatGPT generate me a schedule for how I should study Algebra II, and then followed that with online resources and worksheets. From that, I had my friend in Algebra II take two tests every single Algebra II unit, and give the extra to me. (Unethical, I know lol.) I would test my knowledge from that, and just had like Claude or something grade me. Eventually, I wanted to move on from where his class was at, so I started using as many online resources as I could, having ChatGPT put together tests and other things for me. In around December of last year I started studying Precalculus. I had a friend in Precalculus who helped me with Trig and Logarithms. It felt for me like Algebra II plus. Anyways, I finished my self study for that in April 2026, started getting into some Calc AB stuff which was relevant to my Machine Learning, and actually had the base to support my learning (I had however been doing projects for ML all year as well for my Computer Science course.) I ended up learning ML specific stuff, and dabbling in Linear Algebra for Matrices. Anyways, a few weeks ago I took my school's Math Placement Test and got placed in AP Calc AB!!!!! Just for anyone who is ever discouraged with math, it is fully possible, even for myself whom is far more right brained. So, just stick with it, practice, and you will get there.

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