Molly Riepe

MATH:1210

Final Reflection

December 13, 2024

Since coming to college, I feel like I have been living in a world of mathematics. My

major, data science, requires you to take classes through calculus III, and being amidst so much

math already I plan on taking another math course on top of all of that to round out a

mathematics minor. But prior to starting school here, being around all this math was something I

don’t think I truly understood. Of course I was aware of the classes I had to take, but the extent

of that was just telling my friends in high school “yeah I have to go all the way through calc III,

isn’t that crazy” and essentially leaving it at that. I was under the impression that all this math

was just to add more hours to beef up the data science degree program, and that these were

classes that I would mindlessly make my way through. What I soon realized is that there is no

escape from math. It lives and breathes within everything I do, either for my other courses or just

things I do in my day-to-day life. These calculus classes aren’t just for fun, they are a part of

statistics, and they are a part of computer science whether I like it or not. Over the course of this

semester, learning about those who made mathematics what it is today and who continue to work

in field was incredibly transformative in shaping my perception and feelings towards

mathematics.

Prior to this semester mathematics as a whole was not really something I considered all

that much. I think to me it was just a field contained by everything I had learned thus far in

school and beyond, whatever beyond might be. Mathematics was something figured out
hundreds of years ago and deemed necessary to teach in schools by someone and so I just kind of

accepted that to be true. I had no real concept of what “figuring out” mathematics had looked

like and had never taken the time to really think about what math really was. Now, looking back,

this course has provided me with more knowledge on what mathematics is. Naturally,

mathematics is geometry and algebra and calculus and arithmetic. It is proofs and difficult

problems and long hours. But math is also sharing ideas and creating community. Throughout

this course I was able to see beyond the concrete and obvious ideas surrounding math and come

to see it as an ever-changing community about learning more and asking questions and figuring

things out.

Similarly, my perception of mathematicians, the people who do mathematics, has been

broadened since the beginning of the semester. I was initially unsure as to what someone could

do with a math degree other than become a math teacher or professor. While a lot of people do

choose to go that route, I have learned that there are mathematicians in practically every

scientific field out there. Like Katherine Johnson and the women of Hidden Figures, who were

working to get a man in space. While things are slightly different with newer technology these

days, it was incredible to learn that jobs existed where you just did math the entire day.

Additionally, learning about those women was meaningful because it completely tore down the

preconceived notion I had that people who did mathematics for a living were just “nerdy” and

often men. As with many things of course there were things that weren’t right about the way the

computers at Langley were treated. It was unfair that there were segregated bathrooms, plenty of

underestimation of these women, and oftentimes they didn’t even receive any context to the work

they were doing. What is important though is that they stuck it out and they made great things
happen despite the circumstances. And they showed that as long as you can do math, you can be

a mathematician.

Alan Turing was another individual that stuck out to me and changed my perceptions of

mathematicians entirely. I never would have believed that the father of computer science was a

likely-autistic gay man. How incredible is that? I couldn’t believe that this was someone I’d only

heard rumblings about in my computer science classes. Learning about Turing was like a breath

of fresh air. Here was someone who had a lot going against him still making incredible strides for

the field of mathematics but also for the United States of America. His story and how interesting

the bulk of his life’s work was, was so impactful for me. Yes, mathematics can be just doing

math, but it can also be breaking German codes to end the world war. And that can be done by a

gay man. It makes me feel less out of place knowing that women and queer people have been

here for decades putting in the work because they love it so much despite the immense

challenges society placed upon them.

These ideas were circulating in my head when it came time to choose someone to

research for the Major Paper. I wanted to pick someone that had so many things going against

them because and despite it found success in the field. I remember reading the beginning of Anna

Julia Cooper’s story and learning that she was born into slavery. I knew immediately that this

woman must have had everything going against her and despite it became very important to

mathematics and I needed to learn more. The biggest thing that stuck out to me was how vocal

she was her entire life about receiving access to education. My education is, fortunately,

something I haven’t really ever had to think about. Going to school every day when I was a kid

and even going to school every day now was always a given. So, hearing that Cooper couldn’t

attend school until she was nine years old and then had to fight her way into advanced courses
was very different from what I’m used to. I think now I find myself feeling a lot more grateful

for the opportunities I have had and for the people like her who came before me that advocated

so hard for a reality like this to be possible.

Learning about mathematicians like Katherine Johnson, Alan Turing, and the lesser-

known individuals like Anna Julia Cooper should absolutely be incorporated into mathematics

classes in both secondary and higher education. Even if a student is only taking the bare

minimum of math classes because they plan on going into a field that’s entirely unrelated, I

believe that hearing about the people behind the numbers and formulas would really help put

everything into context. Because math is so complicated and intricate and nuanced, it can be so

easy to get lost in everything. I have had many moments where I have had to step back and ask

myself what I was even doing. But I think understanding the historical context of why computer

science exists, for example, would help it make more sense as to why we need to learn about it

now. Similarly, I know that learning about the diverse individuals behind mathematics would

have helped me tremendously when it comes to feeling like I belong here. Knowing that I’m not

crazy for trying to have a career in data science and not crazy for taking math courses in college

is extremely important.

Overall, I’m very glad to have engaged with the course as I truly feel that my

comfortability with mathematics and my understanding of it from a historical and social context

has changed for the better. I feel grateful to live in a time where I can even take this course to

begin with, because that means that there are in fact diverse perspectives in the mathematical

sciences that have been changing and transforming the field of mathematics for centuries.