Georgia Hoseman, Grade 10, Staff Writer
We’re excited to welcome Ms. Chowdhury, HSAS’ new math teacher! We’re sure she’ll do great things for our school!
Q: Did you want to be a teacher when you were little?
A: I never knew what I wanted to be until I got to high school and I started working at this tutoring center in tenth grade and that's when I realized I really loved teaching, and then I knew I wanted to have a family as well so what better job than teaching to raise kids? You have the same vacations and days off as the students too. So yes, but since high school.
Q: What inspired you to choose math?
A: Honestly math was the one subject that just made sense. In english, there's always not just one answer. In history even, there's so much gray area. But with math, it's not like that. It's not really ‘oh it could be this but if you look at it this way it could be this,’ so I think that's a big reason why I chose it, it just made sense to me.
Q: How did you hear about the High School of American Studies, and what made you want to work here?
A: I heard about HSAS from Mr. Xia. We actually used to work together and I knew he worked here. He only said good things. It made sense for me to work in this area of the Bronx as I still wanted to work for NYC [and I commute from Connecticut]. It is a great school, and I feel like the students here know how to balance academics and fun, it's not just ‘oh my gosh I got a zero I’m gonna fail and I won't go to college.’ I feel like there is more of a balance in this school, especially compared to other specialized schools.
Q: What were you doing before you worked here?
A: I took four years off from teaching and decided to have my three children and that's what I did for four years. Initially I hated it because my career felt more important and even though I had my first child, for some reason my job felt more important to me. Of course the first few months I was devastated. I was like what do I even do? But after the first six months, I started feeling like ok this is really nice, I get to spend time with my kids. But after four years I was so ready to be back. You question your identity and someone would ask me ‘what do you do?’ I'd say I'm a stay at home mom. I forgot that I was a teacher! That's when I knew it was time to return but it was nice while it lasted. I miss it a little bit sometimes but I'm happier to be here.
Q: What is a fun fact about you?
A: A fun fact about me is that I used to do calligraphy before I had kids, and now I'm going into calligraphy of the alphabet and different styles. In the evenings if I have time that's what I do for fun: practice.