Mathletes Take the Pi(e)

On Wednesday, March 1, Poly’s cafeteria hosted the Bay Math League’s first of four annual competitions.
“It’s a big deal,” says calculus teacher and coach of the Poly Math Team, Pam Amici. “There are schools from all over California coming here.” There are twelve schools with teams in the Bay Math League. Poly is the only school from Long Beach Unified District. All others came from schools farther north.
These schools crowded into the cafeteria, filling it with pink “I’m sec C and I know it” jackets and several variations of the Pi symbol made up of various other numbers or mathematical constructs. Poly’s team claimed the largest swath of the cafeteria and, though they had the home field advantage, they did seem to be lacking something the other schools were not: snacks. But, unlike most of the other teams, Poly’s team is not funded by the school.
Most of the schools there had one or two teams of roughly a dozen people each. Poly on the other hand has sixty students on its team. “I believe that I let everyone who wants to participate participate,” says Amici. The only reason she caps the volunteers at sixty is that the bus to the other venues can only hold that many.
According to a handful of the seniors on the team, the main motivator for joining is the extra credit, though there are a handful of underclassmen on math team for the pure love of math. One such mathlete is sophomore William Terlinden, who says math team has given him “perspective on [his] study methods.” He says, “It’s been a way to evaluate my actual skill in math instead of how much I can cram.”
Senior Mani Vu has a different reason for joining Poly’s math team. “On math team,” says Vu, “I attracted so many girls it was ridiculous. I was like a chick magnet.” He then got serious and reflected on how math team has allowed him to embrace his “inner nerd.” He believes that the Math Team is one of those communities that makes Poly such a special place.