I consider myself a community college success story. I began my journey at a small, rural, community college as a returning student and 37-year-old mother of two children (not unlike many of the students I have had in my classes). I had decided to attend college to seek a degree in mathematics after having positive experiences volunteering in my children’s classrooms, where I was usually assigned to the math table. Seeing the children’s faces light up when they understood a math concept in a new way got me hooked.
I was nervous when I took the first steps to enroll at my local community college. I signed up for the placement testing and did better than I thought I might after years of primarily using math in a bookkeeping capacity. I was actually excited that I could take Intermediate algebra, a class I had previously had in high school more than 20 years before. Because I wanted to teach math, I did not want to miss the opportunity to understand the concepts (not just he algorithms I remembered) and I chose to enroll in Elementary algebra. From there, I worked my way to transfer level math and, eventually, a degree in mathematics.