{"id":2304,"date":"2015-08-10T06:34:54","date_gmt":"2015-08-10T11:34:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/?p=2304"},"modified":"2015-08-10T06:41:46","modified_gmt":"2015-08-10T11:41:46","slug":"dale-hoffman-on-community-college-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/2015\/08\/10\/dale-hoffman-on-community-college-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Dale Hoffman on Community College Students"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DaleOffice2010\"<\/a>When speaking at the 2015\u00a0Washington Two-Year Mathematics Conference<\/a>\u00a0at Campbell\u2019s Resort, Lake Chelan, I met many wonderful people, including Dale Hoffman<\/a> of Bellevue College<\/a> (formerly Bellevue Community College), who agreed to send me the following inspiring chronicle of some of his past students:<\/p>\n

Since Bellevue College is open-enrollment, we see an incredible range of students.\u00a0 Some have been academic failures their entire lives and some are just using Bellevue College\u00a0as a stepping-stone to elite universities and technical careers.\u00a0 I think this diversity makes it interesting.<\/p>\n

Some of my memorable students.<\/strong><\/p>\n

1.\u00a020-something Hispanic male.\u00a0 Parents disowned him when he came out as gay in his late teens.\u00a0 Spent a couple years couch-surfing and working menial jobs.\u00a0 Tried a couple community colleges but dropped out. Was at the top of the class in my Calculus III and IV classes, graduated from the University of Washington with honors in neurobiology.\u00a0 Joined Teach for America and is applying to medical school.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Late 20-something black man.\u00a0 Was working full-time as a fireman and EMT and taking classes aiming for medical school.\u00a0 Top of the class in Calculus IV.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 30-something woman.\u00a0 Was married and growing organic crops in California when her 10-year marriage ended unexpectedly. \u00a0 Came to Bellevue to stay with her father and took some classes for fun.\u00a0 Top student in Calculus II and IV.\u00a0 Graduated from the University of Washington in Computer Science and with high honors in mathematics (just because it was fun).\u00a0 Works at Microsoft.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 Late 20s.\u00a0 Major HS activity was her boyfriend.\u00a0 They married and when their child started school, Cindy started taking classes at Bellevue.\u00a0 Good A- student in Calculus I and II.\u00a0 Earned a bachelors degree in Computer Science at the University of Washington.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0 Late 20s, 4’s\u00a0friend and study partner.\u00a0 Worked the midnight to 8 AM shift stocking groceries.\u00a0 Graduated from the University of Washington and teaches AP calculus at a local high school.\u00a0 Students tell me she is tough.<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0 Late 30-something nurse.\u00a0 Made money selling a medical patent and came to BCC to follow her passion to be an astronomer.\u00a0 Hard-working student in Calculus I and II (great role model for the younger students), graduated from the University of Washington in astronomy.\u00a0 Set up a scholarship at BCC.<\/p>\n

7.\u00a0 Early 20s.\u00a0 Had a band in high school and wanted to be a rock star.\u00a0 Realized after several years of working in a print shop that the band was going nowhere.\u00a0 Came to BCC to take some math classes.\u00a0 After finishing all of the calculus courses with top grades he was seduced by physics.\u00a0 Was a top graduate in physics at the UW and got a PhD in physics from Princeton.\u00a0 Now a professor at a very-selective private college and is editor of a national physics journal.\u00a0 Contacted me several years ago beginning You probably don’t remember me .. \u00a0 But I did remember.<\/p>\n

8.\u00a0 20-something.\u00a0 Got a job at an aerospace company right out of high school as an engineering tech.\u00a0 Specialized in inertial guidance systems and trained the newly hired engineers.\u00a0 Realized the people he was training made 3 times his salary so he came to BCC.\u00a0 Earned an Electrical Engineering degree at UW, stayed at his company and made a lot more money.<\/p>\n

9.\u00a016 year old high school drop out – he didn’t fit in hs.\u00a0 First generation college student.\u00a0 Took the entire calculus sequence at BCC, worked overtime at the bicycle shop to save money for the Budapest Semester.\u00a0 Degree in mathematics from UW, another degree in Computer Science.\u00a0 Works at Microsoft.<\/p>\n

High School students<\/strong> taking mathematics at Bellevue.
\nThese would have succeeded without community colleges\u00a0but we helped them along.<\/p>\n

10.\u00a0 Stanford BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering.\u00a0 In a conversation with her grad school advisor, she is really smart, even by Stanford standards. \u00a0 Works in San Francisco for daVinci Robotics doing medical robotics.<\/p>\n

11.\u00a0 BS in math at MIT (was also accepted at Harvard and Princeton), now in the doctoral program in math at Berkeley.\u00a0 Honorable mention in the Putnam.<\/p>\n

12.\u00a0 Degree from Cal Tech.\u00a0 She is now in the doctoral program at Stanford in Ecological Systems.<\/p>\n

13.\u00a0 Degree in math from Duke.\u00a0 Elected as the student representative on the Duke Board of Trustees.\u00a0 Masters in Statistics at Harvard.<\/p>\n

14.\u00a0 BS and MS in Computer Science from Stanford.\u00a0 Now a VP of product development at a Silicon Valley start-up.\u00a0 Honorable mention in the Putnam.<\/p>\n

15.\u00a0 Degrees in mathematics and economics from the University of Chicago.<\/p>\n

16.\u00a0 BS and MS in engineering at MIT.\u00a0 Now in the doctoral program there.<\/p>\n

17.\u00a0 BS in engineering at Harvey-Mudd.\u00a0 Now works locally in computer science.<\/p>\n

18\/19.\u00a0 Harvard and Wharton in finance.\u00a0 Now work for big east-coast firms.<\/p>\n

10.\u00a0 17 years old at BCC.\u00a0 BS in math and philosophy at the UW, PhD in math at Dartmouth.\u00a0 Now chair of a university mathematics department.<\/p>\n

International students:<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0 Many great math students come to Bellvue to bring up their English proficiency before transferring to a university.\u00a0 One Multivariable Calculus class of 37 students had students from 19 different countries who had 17 different first languages (including a couple African languages I had never heard of). \u00a0Bellvue has students from 60 foreign countries, mostly Asian, middle eastern and eastern European.<\/span><\/p>\n

Veterans:<\/strong>\u00a0 I’ve had several veterans who began with beginning algebra and 9 quarters of mathematics later were in Calculus IV.\u00a0 Not top students at that level, but algebra to multivariable calculus in three years takes lots of hard work and grit.<\/p>\n

More<\/strong>: I have also taught the lower level algebra classes with lots of first-generation college students, single mothers, people in drug and alcohol rehab programs, and people with lots of other personal issues.\u00a0 Many really nice people trying to get an education, but with very difficult lives.<\/p>\n

Faculty<\/strong>: Even our math faculty have some interesting stories.
\nBerthe’s Jewish family had to leave Egypt in 1956.\u00a0 After a couple years in Europe the family came here, she studied at Bellvue, got a masters in math at the University of Washington and joined the BCC math faculty.\u00a0 Now retired, but endowed a math scholarship here for women.<\/p>\n

After the revolution Tony left Iran by mule over the mountains to Turkey and then to a camp in Europe.\u00a0 Took classes at Bellvue, got a masters in math at Western Washington State University and joined the Bellvue\u00a0math faculty.<\/p>\n

Larry (the MC at the conference) was a high school drop out who then worked menial labor jobs for a couple years (even spent a week in jail in Salt Lake City as a 17-year old vagrant).\u00a0 Started at a community college, finally earned a PhD in math at the University of Minnesota and joined the Bellvue math faculty.<\/p>\n

We also have tenured math faculty from Korea and India as well as part-time faculty from several other countries including a Jewish fellow from Russia with PhDs in math and physics.<\/p>\n

And lots of bright young full-time faculty, our future.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Dale Hoffman<\/a> of Bellevue College<\/a> received the Pacific Northwest Section of the Mathematical Association of America Distinguished Teaching Award in 2011 and the Washington State Two-Year College Mathematics Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014. He has a new free online calculus book.<\/em><\/div>\n
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When speaking at the 2015\u00a0Washington Two-Year Mathematics Conference\u00a0at Campbell\u2019s Resort, Lake Chelan, I met many wonderful people, including Dale Hoffman of Bellevue College (formerly Bellevue Community College), who agreed to send me the following inspiring chronicle of some of his past students:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":269,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/269"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2304"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2312,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2304\/revisions\/2312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}