Last week, I was interviewed by my school's public relations department on USAMO and general topics. While I expected the questions mostly about how I got to this point, what ended up happening (not surprising for a school with 99% asian) was it quickly turned into a how-can-another-kid-turn-into-you advice session, which, to be honest, kind of misses the whole point. As a result, I continuously emphasized that at some point, motivation to do math has to become intrinsic, and in the interview we talked a lot about how one's motivation to do math initially begins to change.
As of now, I've reflected a bit on my 2 + epsilon years in math competitions, which while short, still went through of what I thought is the math contestant's journey.
In addition, AoPSers may find this post helpful because many of the burnout/crisis/depression posts on AoPS (which I've made before as well) can be resolved by simply identifying which phase you're in and what to watch out for.
Stage 1: The look-good stageWhen I first learned about AMCs a few months in 9th grade, I was immediately drawn in by the so-called "US Math Team." It was like the USA Olympic Men's Basketball Team, but for math superstars. I envisioned myself standing as one of the brightest on stage, girls falling out their chairs in the audience below, and began doing research on AMC/AIME/USAMO/MOP and their prestiges and whatnot. The more I stood the hierarchy, the clearer my path was: to qualify for USAMO and use it to beast out my college resume and go to an Ivy League and earn a shet ton of money and got a hot af wife and become a legend cause admit it that's why (a lot of us) started math competitions in the very first place.
This was when I started doing AMC problems. They were hard at first - every problem used tricks I had no clue about, and many problems used ideas I've never seen before. However, seeing the road in front of me, it's hard to not be tempted by what lies ahead.
Stage 2: Initial failuresMy first failure was not qualifying for AIME that same year. Despite devoting the entire winter break to mocking AMCs with the 21/4 strategy and singing Chinese songs in the shower, my mock AMC 10 scores wouldn't surpass 108. By AIME, I was barely inching by with 114s on really old AMC 10s, but I nevertheless felt confident. Not surprisingly, I got annihilated by not even solid-solving 15 problems on the notorious 2015 AMC 10A. Worse, I solved problem after problem after the test which I had blanked out on during the test.
This is when a big test comes for all math contestants - are you competitive enough to use failures to take yourself to the next level?
For me, this failure was just the beginning.
Being the hyper competitive person I was, I placed on my agenda to finish reviewing all Intro series by summer, and attend AMSP while doing Interm series during summer.
I remember even on the plane ride to AMSP with whiteawesomesun, I had printed out a pre-collected package of NT problems to work on.
Stage 3: Great leap forwardThis is when things got serious. I still want USAMO for the swag, now with added motivation from the failure. I mastered Intros and Vol 1 as planned. Over summer, in addition to AMSP and doing Interm Alg/CP I took AoPS Precalc, followed by Interm CP during early sophomore year when I got stuck with the book. I was working on CleverMath with my friends then any spare second I had - I wanted to get better. Seeing my divisions go up was like seeing the weights go up.
Stage 4: The transitionFor me, things began blurring when I realized something: I was no longer forcing myself to do a set amount of math a set amount of time a day. I remember nights where I can't get a CleverMath problem out of my head until I got the Eureka moment in bed and woke up to enter my answer.
However temporary, I realized I was doing math simply because I like solving problems.
When AMCs came, it was back to business. I spammed all AMC 10s in existence and rage-spammed AMC 12s. Knowing I would pass AMC, I began spamming AIMEs, even though I could only knock out the early to mid problems. I notched a 129 on the 10A and 117 on 10B and look forward to a 9 on the AIME so I can get that JMO and finally stuff it in the face of my dad whose rage grew exponentially higher as my GPA fell like a landslide from all the time I was doing math.
For weeks, I would mock AIMEs, and by AIME came I was doing 11-15s on old exams, doing as much as I can to stretch my abilities.
Result: Failure yet again.
I sillied both problems 2 and 3 as well as 2 more, getting a 6 and fell 11 short of JMO.
Stage 5: Dive in deep!This was when I continuously comforted myself that I was doing math cause I love it. The night of the AIME, I was back to work. I purchased the 100 series, and entered cage mode.
For the entirety of spring break, I locked myself in a resort hotel room and just did math from morning to night, bar time spent cooling down. Solving problems was the only real thing to me. I ignored school events, didn't talk to anyone, screwed my grades and teachers, and spent all my free time reading the 100 series in the library or attempting to elicit sympathy by releasing my emotions on my blog.
The last day of school, I went straight home as always and did geometry problems the whole evening.
During summer, apart from the 3 hours I reserved myself (ball 2 hours alone, 1 hour running on treadmill) for sports, the rest was either doing pre-olympiad level math or watching Kpop.
The climax of this phase came in the first semester this past year. I was pulling 4-AM-nighters, reading PDFs like EGMO and PFTB any chance I could (car ride, break time, etc.) and doing problems from the 100 series and WOOT while going through Lemmas. As the school-load was lighter than I would immediately finish off school work and spend the rest of night doing math.
This stage is when my motivation had almost completely gone intrinsic; nothing felt more real than the problem solving process.
Stage 6: ResultsAround winter, it was back to business as usual. I redid all AIMEs up until ~2010 again for the second time, really thinking about my strategies and how to avoid sillies (which costed me multiple points on each PAIME).
Fortunately, this ended up working out.
If there's one takeaway message it's that motivation to do math is different for everyone, depending on what stage it is. For some in the look-good phase, this may take a few years of MCs before you begin rising to the top while for many they may find trouble transitioning themselves from extrinsic to intrinsic motivation. I was just fortunate and desperate enough that I was able to get through these stages fairly quickly.
The ultimate goal, however, is to go through this transition and love math for what it is. Once you start telling yourself, "No matter what happens tomorrow on the exam, I know the problem solving skills I acquired will last forever." That's when your scores begin taking care of themselves.
by shiningsunnyday, May 29, 2017, 5:55 AM 
May 2018
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