Hello, Julie.
Please allow me to send you an email, I just want to say big "Thank you" for your math video.
I passed the math placement test in August and I finally graduated from MiraCosta College after 16 years.
It was your video that taught me math in a perfect way for the first time and it was you made me feel that I can do it and math is fun! just like you whispered in your videos.
I was an international student at MiraCosta 16 years ago. I took all requirements credits and, I got my AA degree in the US....I thought. I worked in LA for a while and went to back Japan, my country.
16 years later, my marriage to the wonderful guy from the US took me back here in 2004. I had a great opportunity to get a better job in 2009. I went through three interviews of the biggest company that everyone knows and the perfect position with the great salary was about to give to me after the background check... I could not get it because I was not graduated officially from MiraCosta because my math placement test result was not satisfactory!
Thanks to Mia at MiraCosta, one year later from my first inquiry regarding my status of graduation, I found out that I can take a test at a test service facility in CT. I didn't have to fly back in California, which was a good news. However, my biggest concern was to study math. I was a good student at MiraCosta as well as my college in Japan, however, math was my only weakness for the whole entire life. I had never had grade C and summer school for math supplement class was my routine every year. Plus, it has been more than a decade since I left school. And my brain is degrading! I will be 40 soon!
However, I need to pass this test to get a degree from MiraCosta. I asked my husband whose major was physics and loves math so much to be my tutor. I asked my friend to teach me. I bought textbooks in English, or even in my first language. They all did not work well because I already had such a low self-esteem to math and no confidence. Just thinking that I have to study math....it gave me tear in my eyes and bad memories in my childhood came back to me. I thought I was just stupid.
August 9th was the test day that I arranged; one day before my birthday. I did do it on purpose to give myself some pressure. After I noticed my test day to MiraCosta, Mia introduced me your video on youtube. I was not interested in studying with video at all, but that was the last one I could count on. In this way, nobody sees me crying over easy math problems that everyone can solve...
To make the long story short... I passed the test on the first! I got enough score more than the requirement and it was my best math score ever in my life. My sisters in Japan could not believe that I passed it. My husband was very happy to know that I started liking math as he does. Now I think math is fun! Nobody taught me math like you did when I was a student. Some regrets are here in my heart and I still cannot stop thinking what if I knew I could have fun with math when I was younger. My life might have been better?
I am a patent paralegal. Having a science background is always plus to this field and now I started thinking about it. If I did not meet you and your video, I did not have such an idea to go back to school. Most of all, you gave me a big confidence that I can do it and proved that I was not stupid!
Thank you very very much, Julie. You changed my life. I will keep studying math for fun.
Sincerely yours,
Shigemi Garbo
West Hartford, CT