Seoul to Cambridge, part 3 of 3
The math club
The first time I turned something I was good at into something other people could use.
Context
At school in Cambridge I led the math club. It had more than 80 members.
I was competing at the time too, and received gold awards in the British Mathematical Olympiad and the British Physics Olympiad. But a club built only around competitions would have served a small group of students who were already strong.
The problem
The members needed very different things. A few were preparing for Olympiads. Many more were preparing for A Levels or GCSEs and just wanted to do well in ordinary exams. And good preparation material costs money.
What I did
- Three tracks. Olympiad preparation for the students competing, and A Level and GCSE preparation for everyone else.
- Free workshops. Tutoring sessions that cost members nothing.
- Money for books. I raised about $800 to buy textbooks for the club.
- A free online platform. I built a simple online math platform so the material was available outside club hours.
- Math Day. We organized a Math Day and invited mathematicians from Cambridge to take part.
- members
- 80+
- tracks
- 3
- Olympiad, A Level, GCSE
- raised for textbooks
- $800
What I learned
Being good at something is private. Making it useful to other people takes different work: organizing, raising a little money, and building something people can use without you in the room.
Looking back, a lot of what I’ve started since has the same shape. Tutoring, the Sailing Club, the artists project. Someone has the ability, and something is missing between them and the opportunity.