8/19/2019 Informational Interview Reflection

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After conducting my interview with my calculus professor from highschool, Mr. Gilligan, I was able to gain a stronger understanding of whyexactly he chose his eld, his decision to teach, and why he chose highschool and our exact high school for his career.

 The rst uestion I as!ed Mr. Gilligan was to gain a betterunderstanding of himself and I very uic!ly learned "ust how intelligenthe was. After graduating from high school in #$%&, he pursued ateaching degree with mathematics minor at the 'niversity of (ew)rleans. Although at the time, mathematics was not a primary focusfor him he was able to not only stand out in many of his classes butalso win many awards for his wor!. After college, he too! a few yearso* to tour the 'nited +tates and decided to pursue his masters fromnone other than M.I.T. After successfully completing his masters hedecided to come bac! to (ew )rleans and begin a school meant formathematics and science students. Also after he experienced the

unfair advantages that other schools had by screening others hedecided to begin the school as an open applicant, open acceptanceschool. As the years progressed he was able to see how much it hadgrown over - years.

+ome of my follow up uestions from here were to gain a stronger "udgment on why he chose the eld of calculus and why he chose toteach in high school. )ne of the maxims that he stated throughout ourtal! was that everything you can thin! of involves mathematics insomeway. /alculus is so beautiful because it is so simple in executionbut can pertain to so many di*erent topics and is not limited to what

most people thin!, such as engineering or science.0 1e also didn2twant to teach in the college frame because he had his biggestexperience with education in high school. 1e said initially he didn2treally !now what he wanted to do or what he was good at but his mathprofessor in high school really saw a s!ill that Mr. Gilligan had. 1edeveloped this s!ill and it only too! the record of time to show "ust howsuccessful he was in his career.

'ltimately I always had a connection with my professor in high schoolbut gained a much stronger understanding of who he was, and why hedecided to get into the teaching game. I have a lot more respect for

what he does and am also inspired by his very hard wor! ethic.