My First Awesome Connection

It hit me right in the middle of Intro to Philosophy: Socratic questioning is just like the Gaussian Method for row reduction. I probably sound like a lunatic. But in truth, I'm just a Swattie. Something about the way Socrates tried to make all the men in Athens see in the contradictions in their arguments made me think of what Dr. Hunter had taught us in Linear Algebra about solving systems of equations. 

This idea was so important to me that I scribbled it down in my planner. But when I looked at it again, it seemed kind of silly, and I couldn't quite grasp the connection or the excitement any more. But then I realized I had my first awesome connection (so I got excited again). I wanted to come here (to Swarthmore) so that I could take a math class just because I wanted to and not have my advisor think that was a waste of time. And now that otherwise unnecessary math class had suddenly given me a new insight and a new way to understand philosophy. Yay!