Engineering Competition Coach

Before coming to Stanford, I worked for three years as a high school science and math teacher. I taught biology, physics, algebra, precalculus, and an engineering elective course. I learned a lot from that job, especially the importance of breaking down complex topics into manageable pieces and of assessing understanding with concrete tasks.

The highlight of my career in education was the engineering elective, in which my eight highly-motivated students entered an international engineering competition. Their task was to design and build a model system for preventing trains from colliding with cars stuck on the tracks. At times it was tempting to solve a problem myself, but the project was theirs and my role was to manage the team and help the students create their own solutions. They worked hard, won first place in the American competition, and the whole team traveled to Israel for the final round. You can read more about it in this local news article. The experience was uniquely rewarding and certainly pushed me toward applying to Stanford Engineering.