My school’s math team consisted of six students, two girls (including me) and four boys, to compete in the Caltech Math Meet (CMM). CMM is a math competition for high school students organized by the students of Caltech. We left school early to arrive at the San Francisco airport on time and headed to security first. It was the emptiest I have seen at an airport, so we had extra time on our hands to do homework and study for tests. After 1.5 hours, we boarded the plane, which flew us to LAX in forty minutes, the shortest flight of my life. From LAX, we drove one hour to the hotel, got dinner, and slept at 11:30 PM. At 5:30 in the morning, we woke up, showered, and walked to a breakfast place nearby. After packing our bags, we drove to Caltech and checked in. For the opening ceremony at 8:30 AM, we sat in the Ramo Auditorium for instructions on the individual and team rounds later that day. We headed over to Baxter for the ninety-minute individual round. The problems challenged me, but I felt accomplished afterward for solving many of them correctly!
Outside of the Ramo Auditorium, the competition staff of Caltech provided lunch for all the teams. It was wonderful to see hundreds of other math lovers on a green lawn together, frantically discussing the problems from the first test. Additionally, I finally met the hardworking former president of Athemath, Vivian Loh, in person. As a member of the Athemath community, I would describe the organization as a brilliant way to draw together ambitious girls, the marginalized gender in mathematics.
As a team, we walked around the beautiful campus and headed to the next round, the proof-based team contest in Hameetman. There were many teams in the room, and I loved looking up to the way other members of my team brought unique insights to problem-solving. Even though we could not solve all of them in the allotted one hour, we tried our best to solve most of them.
After the team round (the last exam), we tried to reschedule our flight earlier, so we unfortunately did not stay for the awards ceremony. We also did not arrive at the airport in time; therefore, we decided to go to Sofi Stadium for team bonding and reward for the intense competition. After taking pictures of the stadium and Rivers Lake, we went to the airport for our flight.
Overall, the experience was memorable, worthy, and rewarding. Spending time making new friendships and memories through a shared passion, gaining more math competition experience, and lots of laughs was what my two-day trip was all about.
