"I'm not a math person."

"Math is hard."

There was no lack of memes I found when I searched these two phrases. It seems quite a number of people feel this way. But there are two problems:

1. What is a math person?

2. What is "hard"?

Bonus question: Why does it have to be a blond Barbie saying math is hard? And why is shopping the alternative? News flash, you can like both shopping and math.

While in high school, I was of the opinion that I was most certainly not a math person and that math was hard. I started out on the honors track, but dropped out of it during Honors Pre-Calculus.

But in college, I had some amazing professors and classmates who changed my mind. As a first-year, anxious to try everything out, I had heard that college math is different from high school math, so I figured, why not? Worst case, I might have to drop a course, but AP credits would still keep me on track. And I could drop it, since it passed the placement exam and since I was going to be majoring in something in the humanities, I wouldn't need calculus anyways!

But for those of you who know my major...yeah, it's physics. And I took more than the required math courses for my major. And now tutor math several times a week.

So what changed?

Some of it was having amazing professors, like the ones you see on TV shows who transform the protagonist's life. But I think the bulk of it was math positivity. I was now surrounded by people who liked math. Who wanted to be there. There was no more "math is hard". We replaced it with "math is a challenge", the implication being challenges are fun learning opportunities. By thinking that math was no harder than any other aspect of life, it became less daunting and more accessible.

And there was no more "I'm not a math person." In fact, we often discussed, what is a "math person"? If it's someone to whom numbers instantly, magically make sense and see the world in equations and geometric figures, then that leaves very few "math people" beyond the scrawny, socially awkward, white boy nerd stereotype that TV shows seem to love so much. There really isn't any hard black and white distinction that creates math people and non-math people.

It's amazing how much of a difference simply having a different mindset made. Did I suddenly become a stellar A+ math student? Ha. Ha. No. But I stopped putting myself down and instead learned to enjoy my math courses. And wow. Math is actually truly, genuinely beautiful. I know that sounds ridiculously cheesy, something you expect your nerdy math professor to say, but it's absolutely true. Don't get me wrong, I still think algebra is still ugly as heck and am more than happy that my physics courses allow us to use computer programs to handle the algebra gruntwork. But college math - calculus, differential equations, linear algebra - reveal something about the world around us. At the risk of going full-blown cheesy, they show how everything is connected in the world, bringing daily objects into strange, mathematically beautiful patterns.

A Mandelbrot set (created from complex numbers)! One of the most beautiful patterns in math I've seen.

I also took a Scripps -only (aka women only, other than the professor) course called "Mathematics in Our Culture". We talked a lot about our math feelings. And about how almost every single one of us at some point or another had internalized messages about how we just should not be good at math. Or maybe we could be good, but the boys were just going to be better anyways.

Obviously, this is untrue. And I shouldn't have felt that way. After all,I had an example of a successful woman in STEM right at home with me, as my mother is a computer scientist. But for me, as well as many of my classmates who also had great role models, that still wasn't enough to overcome the harmful messages around us in society. But knowing I wasn't the only one who felt this way and having my feelings be validated, that made a world of difference, giving me the final push I needed to go into math.

I am now a firm believer that there is no such thing as a "math person" and that math is not inherently hard. If we can get past the negative messages society tells us, we can all have a much better relationship with math. Bertrand Russel said, "Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty." Instead of freaking out about how hard math is - just like I did the entirety of high school - relax and take a math course just for fun. Trust me, it'll be a beautiful experience and a chance to learn the hidden truths of the world - you know, everything the textbook back cover claims it does - if you are able to finally open yourself to it.