When I was in middle school (MathCounts' age range), math came naturally to me, and I was a competitive kid. For that reason, Mathcounts was fun for me, and it

When I was in middle school (MathCounts' age range), math came naturally to me, and I was a competitive kid. For that reason, Mathcounts was fun for me, and it helped that I consistently did well. If you've never been to a math competition, it's an interesting environment. It's one of the few places that I thought you could gain respect for "academic prowess". Imagine that, in America! I think that the act of creating a space for an alternative way of thinking / being is a powerful one, and MathCounts does create that for math. I wonder if I would have done a math major in undergrad if it weren't for the combination of math competitions and advanced math classes from middle school through high school. A lot of MathCounts alumni (who self-select to report their current activities) have gone on in fields science, math, technology, programming, and business. Was it b/c of MC? Maybe not. And it is true that math competition-style math is not "real math". Instead, it requires a lot of problem-solving skills, and to a lesser extent, a knowledge of tricks. Upper-level math requires a little bit of that kind of "sideways thinking", too. To me, it is apparent that math contest-style problem-solving is a lot like hacking together software. You have math tricks (known hacks) and you synthesize different domains (algebra, geometry, trig; hardware, networks, storage, etc.) with a little problem-solving (or programming) to get to the answer (or final version of code). I also think that hacking software is a lot like doing research (http://www.elangocheran.com/blog/2012/02/essence-of-productivity/ http://www.elangocheran.com/blog/2012/02/essence-of-producti...), so using the transitive property... I can see how MathCounts can help foster the analytical skills and math skills that we need as a society.