I was never particularly good at math.<p>Junior year in highschool, I bombed the first math test (37&#x2F;100 points) and was about to drop the class, when the teacher pulled me to the hallway and urged I stay with it.<p>This guy was known for being the toughest teacher in the school and I was afraid of him, as was just about everyone.<p>I gave it a 2nd chance, still convinced I&#x27;d fail because this guy was impossibly hard.  He&#x27;d assign 4 hours of homework each night, that even the smartest kids couldn&#x27;t regularly complete.  I&#x27;m not kidding, I&#x27;d regularly be up past midnight working on these assignments.  You were afraid to not complete them.<p>So I tried real hard, and got better.  By the end of the year I had the highest overall average in the class, mainly because his expectation of hard work urged me to put in effort I didn&#x27;t know I could do.<p>Years later I took on Math as a 2nd major in college, directly because this guy taught me I could do it, even though I wasn&#x27;t good at it.<p>The learning experience taught me that I could solve any problem if I had enough determination.