After 3D Animation, I went math for 3rd Period… well, first we had a 15 minute break, then we’d go to math. Math was… hell. I actually don’t hate mathematical concepts themselves but my first math class in high school was kind of a slap to the face.
You’re probably wondering what the hell an “Integrated 2A Math” is. Let me explain that real quick: From 1st to 8th grade, when you learn about math, you learn about all the concepts of a certain level tied together, regardless of the branch of math it’s involved in. So the levels go from 1st grade math to 2nd grade math and so on and so forth.
This pattern changes in most high schools. Instead of a 9th grade math, you get to pick which branch of math you learn. Do you want to learn algebra which talks mostly about variables and formulas? Or geometry where they talked about shapes and congruency? What about trigonometry where they discuss the unit circle as well as sine, cosine, and tangent ratios? Or what about precalculus where they— shoot, I don’t know any yet. Nevermind.
The point is, all of these different branches of mathematics are their own separate field and not based on the level of difficulty. Most high schools distinguish their mathematical courses with these branches of math… but my high school isn’t like most high schools. We distinguish our courses by difficulty, not branch. And so each trimester/year we learn a little bit of geometry, a little bit of geometry, and a little bit of trigonometry.
The Integrated system is divided into 3 years: Integrated 1, Integrated 2, and Integrated 3, each taken in one year. Each of those can be divided into 2 section, 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, 3a, and 3b; then each take one trimester to complete. Supposedly the way you do it is Integrated 1 in 9th grade but for some reason most people in the school do 2a-2b in 9th grade, then they use the third trimester to take a special course specifically dedicated to trigonometry.
Here are all the options you get as to the course sequences:
- Math 8 and Integrated 1 in freshman year: Some of the stuff in this course I learned in 6th grade. The majority of the people I hang around with don’t even think about taking this class.
- Integrated 1 and 2a in freshman year: Basically the previous path but slightly more advanced. This is a very popular option, but they still get a lot of shade thrown at them because there’s many more paths above.
- Integrated 2 and trigonometry in freshman year: A lot of people do this one (including me). This one isn’t challenging to the point where I’d die, but I’ve certainly had close calls in this path.
- Integrated 2, 3, and precalculus in freshman year: This is mostly for the people who want to rush through and get it all done it a short amount of time. I almost did this (it’s actually a popular choice) but changed at the last minute since it might take too much time. (I have other things to do with my life)
- Integrated 3 and precalculus in freshman year: Kind of like the previous option but you don’t rush as much. There are still lots of people doing this.
- AP Calculus AB in the Freshman Year: I can only think of two people off the top of my head in my year that did this. Some people never even get to the point where they can take this class, so this is quite a feat.
I chose to do the 2a-2b-Trig path. It’s not very high on the scale of difficulty… but I still struggled with it. At this stage you’re barely good enough to be spared from the teasing of the smarter kids —- and it’s still a GPA killer!
Let me start by telling you a bit about my 8th-grade math and what that was like: I had a very nice math teacher in 8th grade who gave us several days to process the material she was trying to teach us. She was a nice grader and was only harsh when she needed to be. Usually, we’d have some free time in class if we were diligent with our homework and we were allowed to use that time to do fun things that teenagers want to do.
Okay, did you catch that? Now compare that with my 9th-grade hellhole: Every day, we learned one new concept. We pretty much had twenty-four hours to absorb the concept and learned a new one, which means five new concepts a week, and that could be really tough if you’re getting hard stuff every day. And instead of getting a single worksheet on that new concept alone (so we can absorb it more efficiently) they give us textbook problems which vary in concept, meaning you’re learning a bunch of material that you covered three months ago which won’t be on the next test (Just an example). Not only do we have all that, we’re also doing two quizzes every single week. These quizzes are pretty low-stakes so bombing one occasionally can be excusable if you’ve created a good buffer in your grade. The work we do is mostly independent… we didn’t have to work with others if we didn’t want to. (Just wait until a few months from now when I write the 2B course review. I’m writing this article a month into the second trimester, and there is so much teamwork that I kind of have trouble enjoying it).
If you came here wanting to know the mathematical concepts we covered, sure, I’ll give it to you. The trimester consisted of five units.
- The first unit mostly talked about transversals, a line intersected by two lines. We discussed all these types of angles that are formed by transversals and practiced so many problems that I was pretty sure whoever made these problems couldn’t think of more.
- Then we went over congruency and similarity. When two shapes are congruent, it means they’re basically the same shape— their side lengths, angles, and all other properties are equal. Judging from the name of similarity, you’d think similarity was just about the same as congruency, but that’s only partially correct. The similarity is when the shapes are the same but the sizes are different; basically, the angles are the same and the sides are proportional.
- The third unit was trigonometry and probability. The probability stuff is mostly basic stuff, like unions and intersections. The trigonometry part of the unit covered these things called “tangents” which are just ratios for how to find the “tan” of an angle on a triangle, based on where the adjacent and opposite angles are in the triangle. Or you could put the angle into the calculator and simply find out the ratio yourself.
- The fourth unit covered quadratic factoring, sines, and cosines. Factoring is basically a fancy term to turn a mathematical equation into a bunch of parentheses, and it’s actually quite simple to do once you get the hang of it. There’s also sines and cosines, which are basically tangents but from different parts of the triangle.
- The last unit was all about quadratics. After you learn how to factor them, there’s one more “bonus” step you can take to solving the quadratic equations. We learned several methods to complete those equations, besides factoring there’s also completing the square (which is like factoring but you change up the equation a bit) and the quadratic formula (Where you just plug in numbers)
If I’m being completely honest, this might be my least favorite class just because of how hard and stressful it was. It’s probably a good thing I go through some struggles now, though, because I got the second worst Integrated 2 teacher for this trimester and he’s setting me up to be ready for harder challenges… in a few months, when we talk about my Integrated 2b experience, I’ll tell you about my experience with a teacher that was even tougher. (Seriously, I can’t believe that there are teachers harder than what I had in 2a)
After my third period math class, I took a 30 minute lunch break, where I would mostly jump between groups that I sat with (Since my old middle school group kind of split up). And for fourth period, we had to do this course called ENS, otherwise known as Excercise and Nutrional Science…
(Stay tuned!)