Bard, A Place to Think - Master of Arts in Teaching

Hometown: New York, NY
Previous Education: Georgetown University, MBA
Case Western Reserve University, M.S. Mechanical Engineering
Cornell University, B.S. Mechanical Engineering
Work Experience Prior to Bard: Engineer, five years (GE & Cummins Engine Company)
Finance, four years (Da-Lite Screen Company & Johnson and Johnson)

Why did you want to become a teacher?
I did not start my career intending to become a professional educator but teaching others has been a constant in my life and I have had the opportunity to work with youth through various non-profit organizations for more than 10 years. I view my history of volunteer work as a series of important stepping-stones that has helped me make this decision to transition from my current role in corporate finance to a full-time position teaching mathematics at the secondary school level. I would like to teach mathematics at the secondary school level because it is a critical period for student development. I don’t believe that students are inherently “good” or “bad” at math but rather that students need an involved community, dedicated teachers, good curriculums and adequate resources in order to be successful.

What are your career goals?
While I don’t expect to convert all the students that I meet as a teacher into mathematical geniuses, I do hope that I will be able to demonstrate that mathematics has a critical place in everyone’s lives. I would like to help my students understand that the study of mathematics creates habits that allow us to more easily question our preconceived notions, to identify key pieces of information and to address problems using a procedural way of thinking that will be useful wherever life leads them, as the study of mathematics has already done for me.

Why did you choose Bard?
I was attracted to Bard’s small program size, its active collaboration with schools in the NYC/Hudson Valley area and because of its support for the revision of public school programs. I also found the representatives that I met from Bard to be great ambassadors for the program and thought that the split placement between Bard’s Hudson Valley campus and its NYC center would provide me with a diversity of experiences that would help me develop my teaching career.
Since moving to NYC, I have realized how important our co-location with Bard High School Early College #2 (BHSEC-Queens) has been to my education as a teacher. Our co-location has provided me with a unique opportunity to interact with, and observe the students, faculty and staff at BHSEC-Queens on a daily basis, and has given me an additional perspective on education in the NYC public school system.

Tell us about your student teaching experience.
I spent the month of September at the Urban Assembly – Bronx School for Law Government and Justice (BxLGJ) and had an amazing experience. My mentor teacher really cares about the development of her students and has high expectations for them…and they respond. My placement has been inspiring and I am anxious to get back to my student teaching placement in February.

Is there a particular professor or course that you especially enjoyed? Why?
All the professors in the program have been wonderful in their own way. I couldn’t pick one to single out.

Is there anything else you would like to share with prospective Bard students?
Bard’s program is very much focused on developing teachers and one of my professors/advisors summed up the program’s goals so effectively in the following (paraphrased) statement:
My goal is to see you graduate from the program and to become as effective a teacher as you can be…I want you to look back two or three years from now and think that becoming a teacher was one of the best decisions of your life.