For some MESA alums, a teaching career

As a MESA engineering student at CSU Chico, Ian Wu took tutoring positions with the program to make money and help younger engineering undergraduates. Soon, though, his part-time job became a full-time passion and led Wu to change his major to math and pursue a career in teaching.

Now Wu is a MESA faculty advisor and teaches arithmetic, algebra, and other math classes at Sacramento City College and CSU Sacramento. Wu started in the MESA program at Sacramento City College. He transferred to CSU Chico after earning an asso-ciate degree in math, and said the people he met at Chico helped him through difficult times.

“My family didn’t agree with me wanting to become a teacher, so I didn’t get any financial or emotional support from them,” he said. “My MESA teachers and friends became that support system I needed.”

Wu and other MESA alumni who become educators represent a critical resource at a time when a shortage of qualified math and science teachers is projected to worsen as baby boomer teachers retire. Almost 100,000 teachers are expected to retire by 2014, according to the California Retired Teachers Association.

According to the California Council on Science and Technology, the state issues about 2,500 science and mathematics teaching credentials each year, but is hiring almost 4,000 science and math teacher annually.

Many MESA students get exposed to teaching while tutoring younger MESA participants and find that they prefer to stay in education rather than go on to become science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) professionals, said MESA Executive Director Oscar Porter.

“The majority of our students will still go directly to the industry workplace, but it is important they see teaching as another career option as they complete a STEM degree,” he said.

MESA alum Robin Wilson also viewed teaching as a career possibility while tutoring in an outreach program at UC Berkeley. Wilson began with MESA at Sam Brannan Middle School in Sacramento and eventually earned a Ph.D. in math from UC Davis. Now he teaches calculus and topology at Cal Poly Pomona.

“I don’t know if I’d be in the sciences if I wasn’t involved in MESA,” he said. “Having science and math through MESA early on for six years influenced my vision of career goals. I wouldn’t have gone on to graduate school without that influence.”

The schools that suffer most from the shortage of math and science teachers are grade schools and high schools.

Dana Lovejoy, who teaches six math classes at Calapooia Middle School in Albany, Oregon, found her passion for teaching while peer tutoring at the MESA center headquartered at the Resources for Indian Student Education (RISE) in Alturas.

“MESA activities always came from a different perspective and provided challenge. Through MESA I had an opportunity to do some teaching,” said Lovejoy, a member of the Cherokee tribe. “Our director used to be a teacher and had great teacher strategies; she made it look easy. She influenced me to do the same; to become a teacher who pushes her students to be the best students they can.”

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