In seventh grade, I was a new student at Stratford and placed in Algebra 1. 

It was the highest math class at the time, and I had not learned quite everything I was supposed to learn at my previous school. 

Because of that, and the fact that I was a new student having to adjust a new environment, I did not make the grades I wanted that year. 

I assumed that math was not my thing, and that I would struggle for the rest of middle and high school. 

During the summer, however, I reviewed Algebra 1. I wanted to be prepared for the next year. 

I still expected to struggle, but geometry actually went a lot better than Algebra 1. 

Mr. Hubbard suggested that I join Math Team, but I was hesitant to do so in the beginning of the year. I did not actually sign up when they were forming the team. 

As the year went on, I began to like math even more. There was nothing more satisfying than solving a problem that seemed impossible at first. 

I decided to join Math Team about a week before MathCounts, there main math tournament. 

I did not know much about Math Team other than that they do math though, so I walked into my first tournament not really knowing it was a competition or that there were different rounds or anything like that. 

I thought that there would be just one test that we would have to take, and then we would be done. I imagined it to be kind of like the SAT. 

However, I found out that math team in a much more collaborative experience than most people think.. 

Everyone understands math a little differently, and everyone sees different ways of solving a problem.

So, in the middle of our team round, when we had to solve ten problems with the rest of our team, we had to work together to find solutions to the problems. 

We only got two right, but we probably would have gotten none right if we had not been working together.