Introduction, due on August 29

• I am a senior in the Mathematics Education department.

• I have taken Math 290, 313, 314, 334, 341, & 371. 

• I am taking this class because I remember really liking the Cryptography unit during my Math 290 class. When my advisor told me that he would allow this course to count as my optional upper-level math class for the Mathematics Education major, I thought it would be really cool to teach. When I was debating between this class and Graph Theory for this semester to count for that credit towards the MathEd major, one of my friends told me that "Jenkins is a great teacher. He actually tries to help you learn and cares about you." I have really struggled in many of the upper level math classes, and I am excited to have a teacher that is willing to help me. 

• The only CAS systems I have experience with are the Texas Instruments CAS systems on the TI-89 and the TI n-Spire. That has been my only programming exposure. I'm nervous about using these programs to turn in my assignments if this is a proofy class because I have a really hard time formulating proofs, but I would not be nervous using them for computations. I'm not afraid of a challenge, though, and am willing to try. 

• I have had so many math teachers in college that it would be hard to pick one that was the most/least effective. However, there were many things they did that I noticed either helped or hindered my learning. For instance, I had a teacher who made me feel Really dumb when I came and asked him questions during his office hours which made that class difficult for me. The classes I have had the hardest time succeeding in are those where the teacher likes to surprise the students on the exams with lots of proofs to see how they do; to me, that's not demonstrating my knowledge of the classroom material and is instead just demonstrating how horrible I am at proving things. I loved that one of my teachers made homework due just once a week so I could focus on learning the material. Another teacher would allow us to email him questions and would really promptly respond which was really helpful to me. Also, I had a teacher give very detailed study guides of key and important problems for the tests and he would only select test questions from that study guide; I learned more in that class than I ever have in a BYU math class.

• I have 5 older brothers and all five of them went to the U of U. That makes me the only Cougar of the family!

• I have class during your office hours, but I would be able to come MWF from 12-1:00.