Honors

I competed in the Purple Comet! Math Meet, an international online math competition that tests students' problem-solving and logical reasoning as a team. In 2024, more than 4,500 teams from over 80 countries took part. As part of a six-member team, we placed 2nd in the Large School Division among South Korean high schools, solving 30 math problems in 90 minutes.

To prepare, I went to weekly team meetings and put in more than 10 hours working through past competition papers. My teammates and I experimented with different ways of splitting up the questions, assessing each person's strengths across different math topics to figure out the most efficient approach for competition day.

During the actual competition, I worked through everything from straightforward calculations to problems that demanded real creative thinking and rigorous logical reasoning. Working under time pressure pushed me to sharpen my communication skills too in that I had to learn how to explain my reasoning clearly and quickly so our team could make informed decisions in a timely fashion.

This experience left me more confident in my problem-solving ability and taught me the value of sticking with a problem even when the answer isn't obvious right away. Even when I got stuck, I kept trying different angles and using whatever resources I had to work through it.