Comment by abustamam

Makes me realize how lucky I was to have teachers who pushed me to actually excel in areas I was gifted in (and also pull me back in areas I was not gifted in :))

When I was in 7th grade I was getting 100% on all my math exams so my teacher had me test into 8th grade math (algebra). Then when I was a sophomore I was supposed to take precalc but my teacher thought I obviously didn't belong there either so she put me in her Calc AB class, which was the highest math class my school offered, but had me self-study for the Calc BC AP test during class time, taking her own time to sit down with me whenever I had questions.

A couple years later I TA'd for her precalc class and I spent most of my time in that class playing with my TI 8x (can't remember the exact model, maybe 84?) and programming very basic games on it. I showed her what I made and she was so impressed she said I should study computer science.

Guess what I did? Not that. I studied something completely different in college but now I've been a programmer for ten years and wonder why I ever doubted her at all.

Just goes to show how much impact a good teacher has on a student's life.