Emma Barnes

Back to All Education, Mathematics Spotlights

After graduating with degrees in math and economics, I had the opportunity to travel with the U.S. Fulbright Program to Indonesia for 10 months to teach English in Padangsidimpuan, North Sumatra. While I don’t have a degree in teaching, I worked as a math tutor for three years through the tutoring program at St. Mike’s and took an online TEFL certification course over the summer before my senior year to be better prepared to be in the classroom. It was definitely a challenge to try to adapt to an entirely new culture, language, and way of life, but in retrospect, the beacon of light in my experience was the interactions with my students and the friendships I was able to form within my school community.

The ways that St. Mike’s prepared me for this experience are harder to pin down than just a class taken or a book read, but more in a certain analytical way of thinking that I developed through math and economics courses, and which informed every observation and interaction I had at site. These things help me work on building a more holistic view of the world for myself that will undoubtedly inform the career decisions I make in the future.