Math Burnout: The advanced math track’s dead end

After four hours of flipping through notes and doing every practice problem Khan Academy had to offer, I confidently shut my laptop after submitting my AP Calculus test on continuities and derivatives. I did the work, I studied hard and I knew the material — or so I thought.

I got a C.

Now, this wasn’t my first C and there are probably more C’s to come, but seeing the grade notification pop up on Canvas hit me harder than a 12-page review packet. I’d sacrificed too much time with my family and lost enough sleep all for a measly C, and with one thought, I realized I’d reached my breaking point.

What am I doing this for?

When the option to test up into Pre-Algebra came about when I was in fifth grade, I approached academia with the same vigor as a 20-something year old trying to make it on Wall Street — the only way through is up. 

So I started high with 6th-grade Pre-Algebra, chasing the tails of the most accelerated classes until sophomore year when I switched from Honors Pre-Calculus to College Algebra Trigonometry (CAT) — I couldn’t stay up until 1 a.m. anymore trying to solve logs. After four years on this advanced math track, I’ve watched my elementary-school mathletics passion morph into the lock that keeps me boarded away in my room studying. CAT was supposed to be my way off the fast track, where I could learn math at a pace better suited for me. But this was not an exit — I had to take AP Calculus junior year anyways. It was a dead end.

The advanced option offered in fifth grade was portrayed as the right path for those who enjoyed math. It turned out to be a trap, leading kids to drown in math classes designed for college students with no escape, all because they were good at long division when they were 10. 

At this point, I let go of my desired 4.7 GPA, not because I couldn’t do it, but because getting an A in Calculus would be at the expense of my own mental health. So I dropped the class. I could’ve continued to allow derivatives to devour my Sunday nights on top of my other time-consuming school work or I could use that time to enjoy my junior year of high school.

The pressure towards high academic achievement has infiltrated our brains at one point or another. The challenge is knowing your limits. I’d tested in the top 10% of math almost all of my academic career and knew I’d hit the ceiling as far as math content with Calculus.

This holy-grail idea of jumping up a math grade leads kids into making blind decisions to test up, naive to these college-level classes they’d have to take later on. And it certainly didn’t help when they lowered the gating criteria into the accelerated path, driving more kids towards this Calculus wall.

Students deciding on whether to take Calculus or not shouldn’t feel the pressure to take the class. Calculus wasn’t designed for everyone so if that route isn’t for you, don’t be afraid to go off track and occupy your time doing a subject you’re actually interested in. 

The rigor of these upper-math classes wasn’t worth the effort to me. As an aspiring English-field major, I prefer to spend my time journaling instead of manipulating matrices. Even if I did wish to pursue math when I was older, the premature level at which I was learning polynomials made it hard to actually comprehend it. 

This option for fifth graders to test up in math puts them two years above the regular math curriculum — taking junior-level math classes as freshmen. This advanced route exhausts all other high school math options, leaving 15-year-olds sitting next to 18-year-olds in the same math classes with nowhere else to go. Those on the accelerated route are funneled into AP Calculus for junior year, making the path feel more like a penance than a privilege by the time you submit your next year’s course list to your counselor.

Despite getting caught up in the heat of graphing limits, it’s important to know your exit options. While skipping a year of math is discouraged, so is taking classes that give you a rush of anxiety just thinking about the homework. And while taking math all four years is strongly advised, that 8th-grade Honors Geometry credit went on your high school transcript, giving you some wiggle room to skip a year of math in high school. 

My biggest suggestion? Weigh the pros and cons of taking a higher math class — is it required for your dream school, do you want to pursue math as a career, can you see the material helping you later in life? 

Had I not tested up, I’d be in Honors Pre-Calculus right now, or the less rigorous option I took last year, CAT. There is no regular, non-honors Calculus class, so by making it this far in math it’s assumed you want the rigorous math class. But this class isn’t solely filled with the kids wanting to pursue math as a career. It’s the kids who just want to complete their high school transcript.

Sure, when you’re 10 years old and love math — the figure-out-how-many-chickens-and-cows-there-are kind of math — taking on the advanced route sounds like a good thing. And while being the only seventh grader in my Algebra 1 class was a huge confidence boost, no elementary student has the foresight to realize it’s not worth the academic jump just to spend every night of junior year scrawling out trigonometric graphs when life should be spent doing more than just math.

While Indian Hills has started making revisions to reduce the number of kids on this path in the future, there’s still a freight-train of underclassmen heading towards the Calculus wall right now — tutors in tow.

You have the freedom to evaluate whether these math classes are worth it for you — if you’re in them because you love math and want to pursue a next-level math class or because you felt pressure to chase the most academically intense courses.

Simply put, after five years of rigorous math classes, I’m tired of racking my brain trying to remember the different trig proofs and staying up until 1 a.m. to decipher my tear-smudged notes. I’ve learned my limits as to how far I’m willing to go in math, and for me and this math train, Calculus is the stop where I step off.