Math and Me

Math used to be my least favorite subject because I did not understand it. In fourth and fifth grade, I had two teachers who, well, didn't teach. My fourth grade teacher was gone all the time so we constantly had different substitutes who played movies all day. My fifth grade teacher turned are class into a swing dancing class and never taught. Let's just say she got fired after our year. So my parents enrolled me at Sylvan Learning Center for math. It started to get a lot easier after that, but I had lost a lot of my developmental stage. It is still extremely difficult to calculate in my head; I'm better off with a calculator. I definitely understand algebra and geometry, but start adding parabolas and imaginary numbers, I'm a lost little puppy.

I think so many students fear math because if you don't understand the basic concepts then you don't understand why you need to know it. Plus, many students, at least from my school district, would get extremely bad math teachers one year and not understand anything they were supposed to learn from them. If you miss one learning step in math, the next class feels like taking Spanish class 4 without taking Spanish class 1.

Though math can be confusing and frustrating, I believe it is very important in everyday life and can not be avoided. You need to know math just to balance a check book. Math is important in doing you taxes, mortgage, and paying your bills. Also, math is important in any advertising, marketing, and public relations firm. Actually, it's important in every business. You need to know the budget of the company, how best you can spend the available money, keep track of the spending, etc. Math can be important in designing an office layout, a campus tour booth for a company such as Coca Cola, and so on.

Math is definitely love, hate relationship.

Media Usage

On an average day, I use the Internet about 6 hours a day. I watch television about 1 to 2 hours a day. I read magazines and newspapers about 1 hour a day. The medium I use the most is my cell phone. My cell is on 24 hours a day. I have no clue how many hours I use it, but I regularly get text messages and phone calls.

If I was Vitamin Water and was trying to reach me, I would run television commercials, print advertisements, and web banners. I would not send e-mail offers to myself. If I do not know the sender, I delete the message. I very much dislike junk mail and a majority of the time it has a virus attached. I would not use cell phone advertising. My cell phone is a private line and is meant for friends, family, and networking.

I would have web banners on Facebook, Myspace and New York Times website because I check these sites regularly. I would use print advertisements in snowboarding magazines and Vanity Fair. I would also run commercials on ABC, NBC, and ESPN. Also, since I am a college student, campus ambassadors promoting Vitamin Water would grab my attention.

The most effective mean of making me a customer is probably a free sample or a coupon. I tend to try new products if there is a coupon. Sometimes after using the coupon on the product, I become a regular buyer.