By David Soberanes-Rivera
A new school year brings forth a lot of changes – from new teachers to new students – and how else to shake the status quo than to do something different, like adding a new program?
Mrs. Wilson, one of our geometry teachers in the first floor of the main building, took the initiative to shake the floor beneath us, teaching the brand new Civil Engineering and Architecture (CEA) class, a new way to take your math skills to a new level.
CEA will cover a variety of topics, but it mainly hopes to “teach students that civil engineers plan, design, construct, and maintain many aspects of the world in which we live.” Ultimately, Civil Engineering and Architecture’s goal is to show those who take it “how much work truly goes into making a structure beautiful but also functional and safe.”
To aid Mrs. Wilson, the Project Lead the Way program will provide a curriculum for the class to follow. She also has first hand accounts from her kids that graduated in the CEA field, and confirms that students will be learning some of the same topics college students learn.
Shreve students are lucky to have a truly dedicated teacher like Mrs. Wilson. She will not just settle for average, but instead strive for perfection. She says, “I have spent many late nights preparing to teach this material because when I do something, I want to do it with excellence.”
Mrs. Wilson was asked whether managing all of her activities sounds stressful or hard to keep up with. She replied, “We all know having lots of irons in the fire can be stressful, but I have learned to become pretty organized when it comes to my time. I tick items off my list one item at a time and keep going… doing the best that I can.” Even though others may find it difficult to keep up with, Mrs. Wilson mentions that “The students make it worth it!”
Math is where Mrs. Wilson’s heart lies, and she is more than capable of teaching one of the oldest fields in engineering. She may not be very familiar with CEA but, “I absolutely love to learn, and this is truly a learning experience.”
If your passion lies in using math outside of school, then you should be interested in joining Mrs. Wilson in this new journey and testing yourself in real life situations that may prove useful later down the line.