Creativity break: When did you first realize that you liked algebra

(whimsical electronic music) (clicking) - One day, my family was building this fence around my chicken coop. 'Cause there were problems with raccoons. And we wanted to make sure that the perimeter of the fence was twice the the length of the width. And I remember thinking, "This is exactly like my algebra class. "I'm actually doing things that are useful." Algebra wasn't just something that you do on paper, it was actually protecting the lives of my chickens. So I felt like that was a moment for me where math is useful to the world, and we're solving real problems with it, and it's really powerful. - So I realized that I first liked algebra, and just math in general, my first year in college, I was a little bit of a late bloomer in realizing the importance of math. I was taking an early statistics course for my psychology degree. And I really began to understand how the concepts that I were learning could help me understand the world around me better in a more concrete, fluid, and rich way. And so being able to make that connection from these things that I'm learning in the classroom out into the real world, so that I can under understand different phenomenon, I can understand how various things in our culture work and progress, really helped me and made me feel like I had a deeper understanding for the importance of math and algebra. And from that point I've really been in love.