Despite having approximately 40 members, 15 of which regularly participate in county wide math competitions, the math team is not the most well known club in SPHS. And despite what Mean Girls would have you believe, it probably isn’t actually social suicide.
Heather Jones, adviser for the math team, isn’t too disappointed by the lack of attention, “We really have a low impact on people’s schedules so I’m okay with us not being highlighted. In sports teams they put in hours of practice after school but in math team you don’t put hours of practice in every week.”
Even though the math team doesn’t require too strenuous of a commitment, they still placed third in the county wide competition overall last year and are receiving awards even now. This nonchalant attitude extends even to the members of the club.
“I joined math team in middle school because I liked doing math,” says senior Davis Cook, “And I’ve just stayed in it since.”
The questions remains though, what is math team?
Well like any competition it beings with some preparation. Jones says they meet around two times before every competition to prepare and when the actual competition comes around anyone can come.
“Some schools are more competitive, and they’re like you must come to competition practices but I’m like yeah whatever. We’re here to have fun,” says Jones, adding, “I enjoy seeing people come to competitions where they like to do math and they can be around other people who also like to do math.”
The actual competitions themselves encompass a wide variety of math levels from geometry to pre-calculus to trigonometry, so anyone can participate in either the individual or team rounds, regardless of math level. Each round consists of six non calculator problems that have to be completed in 30 minutes. Year round, there are five competitions through the Anne Arundel Community College where 15 schools from across the county participate.
This may sound nerve-wracking, but Jones and other members stress this is not a strenuous extra curricular.
“If you want to be around people who enjoy doing math this is a great opportunity to socialize with people who enjoy doing math,” says Jones simply.
