Major: Public Policy Analysis with a Sociology concentration
Profession: High school teacher
Hometown: Columbia, South Carolina
What are you doing now?
I’m a high school math teacher in Atlanta, Georgia, teaching algebra. Additionally, I coach the high school swim team, and in the summer, I coach a summer league team.
How did you get there?
In college, I was interested in education access so that’s why I studied public policy and sociology. I learned that there is so much research on how we can improve educational access, and I wondered, “Why is there still so much inequity?”
Interning at Homeboy Industries, a gang rehabilitation program in Los Angeles, I realized we of course want to deal with injustice on a systemic macro level, but the individual relationships that I saw at Homeboy Industries—what Father Greg was doing that was changing people’s lives—were also breaking a system of poverty and violence.
After that, I wanted to be on the grounds in education access, which looked like teaching itself. I went back to South Carolina, where I’m from. I did Teach for America in rural South Carolina for two years. I met really passionate teachers, and they inspired me so much. I continued teaching after Teach for America, going back to my hometown. Then I met my husband, and I moved to Atlanta. I’ve been teaching for the past four years at a Title One school. My passion is for teaching students struggling with math. It’s been interesting because I’ve had to learn math again.
How did Pomona prepare you?
First, a love for learning. That’s something I really want to provide to my kids. I want them to feel empowered by learning. Pomona also made me think very flexibly. I’m not a math person; I only took one math class at Pomona. I was teaching math because South Carolina has a high need for math teachers. Pomona taught me to be willing to learn and to think, “I can figure this out and ask people for help.”
Where do you see yourself in five years?
I think my passion will always be for education access. Programming is something I’m interested in. I think it’s a lot to ask for teachers and a school system to deal with a lot of the issues that kids are facing, whether that’s seeing violence growing up, not having access to food and housing, or mental health issues. So something in programming or maybe mentorship are things I’m looking into.
Any advice for current or prospective students?
I am really glad I embraced resources at Pomona such as study abroad, summer internships, and traveling and doing research with my professor. Take advantage of those resources because a very limited amount of people in the world has those kinds of opportunities.
Also, the people at Pomona are probably the most passionate people that I have ever met, as well as the most willing to learn, and they have big ideas. Maintain those friendships. My friends from Pomona and I still motivate each other.
During COVID, I reached out to some Pomona alumni to speak to my students, and they all said yes. There were nine of them that were willing to do it. COVID was a hard year for people, but my kids were pretty engaged, and it’s because we made the connection of, “How are these math skills going to help them?” and how people that look like them can do really cool things.