I was never particularly good at math. Junior year in highschool, I bombed the first math test (37/100 points) and was about to drop the class, when the teache

I was never particularly good at math. Junior year in highschool, I bombed the first math test (37/100 points) and was about to drop the class, when the teacher pulled me to the hallway and urged I stay with it. This guy was known for being the toughest teacher in the school and I was afraid of him, as was just about everyone. I gave it a 2nd chance, still convinced I'd fail because this guy was impossibly hard. He'd assign 4 hours of homework each night, that even the smartest kids couldn't regularly complete. I'm not kidding, I'd regularly be up past midnight working on these assignments. You were afraid to not complete them. So I tried real hard, and got better. By the end of the year I had the highest overall average in the class, mainly because his expectation of hard work urged me to put in effort I didn't know I could do. Years later I took on Math as a 2nd major in college, directly because this guy taught me I could do it, even though I wasn't good at it. The learning experience taught me that I could solve any problem if I had enough determination.