B.A. in Civil Engineering, 2011
School of Education
October 1, 2010
“I may be the only Engineering Major on campus with a Minor in Educational Studies who is interested in teaching.”
This year, Senior Year, is the time to finish everything, time to make sure you have accomplished all you want to accomplish in your college career. I believe, as of now, I have reached that accomplishment, apart from the diploma, of course. I have a passion for learning on my own as well as teaching others and sharing my knowledge, and that passion has grown over my four years here.
Since my first year at UC Irvine, I have been a member of the Teachers of Tomorrow Club. I lived in the Education dorm in Middle Earth with multiple other students interested in becoming teachers. I also lived in the Careers in Teaching house in Arroyo Vista my second year. Through these living experiences and being involved in Teachers of Tomorrow, I have seen and experienced many different perspectives on the subject of Education. I have done various types of work at different elementary and middle schools throughout Orange County through the Think Together Program as well as through service projects with the houses I have lived in. This work also contributed to my Minor in Educational Studies.
This year (2010-2011), I am the President of Teachers of Tomorrow and am hoping for the best year yet! We will host fundraisers to raise money to sponsor all of our members to attend the Santa Ana College Road to Teaching Conference, which I have attended all four years while at UCI. It is a great experience and really shows you if teaching is your passion and what you are meant to do. We also hope to bring in some really great speakers who are very important in the field of education.
This past year I was a Learning and Academic Resource Tutor for the calculus classes on campus. I love being in front of the board and helping others learn my favorite subject. This has helped me discover how rewarding becoming a teacher can be — for the students and for the teachers themselves. It makes me proud when a student can walk into my tutoring session with the test they just got back and show me that they knew exactly how to solve that kind of problem because of the way I taught it. This year I was nominated to become a mentor tutor, and through this I will be assigned a group of new tutors to watch over and help out when they need support in their own tutoring sessions.
A possibly unique thing about me is that I am a Civil Engineering Major. I may be the only Engineering Major on campus with a Minor in Educational Studies who is interested in teaching. Upon graduation, I hope to gain experience as a Civil Engineer and then go back to school a few years later for my teaching credential to teach high school students higher level of math and physics and get them excited about engineering.
This past summer I had the opportunity to work for the City and County of San Francisco in the Bureau of Engineering. I learned so much working with other engineers, and it helped me realize even more that I would like to become an engineer, and eventually settle down in a classroom and teach and pass my knowledge on to other students and motivate them to do great things — like becoming an engineer or an amazing teacher.
Everywhere I go and everything I want to do involves education. We wouldn’t be here now at a University if it weren’t for education and the amazing teachers that helped us get here. I give all my respect to those teachers who inspired their students to get to where they are today.