After one week of my engineering classes, it became crystal clear–I had always wanted to teach, so why wasn’t I?”

Anna’s Story

Anna Polasek decided that she wanted to become a teacher in third grade.  In high school, she had the opportunity to go to Japan for two weeks to study the educational system through a program sponsored by Kalamazoo College.

As the years went on, Anna set aside her desire to teach and decided to follow her father and sister in becoming an engineer. Still she continued to spend a lot of time helping her classmates with their math homework. “I’ll never forget the pleasure of hearing things like ‘why didn’t the professor just say that’ or ‘that’s a lot simpler than I thought.” She switched to secondary education and math her second year of college.

Anna graduated from Vicksburg High School before entering Michigan State University where she earned a dual degree in Spanish and mathematics. She volunteers at a local humane society and sings in a church choir.