Introduction

I’ve wanted to be a teacher since my sister and I were kids, when we would play ‘school,’ a game in which I was usually the teacher.

My path to becoming a teacher started in earnest when I attended Portland Community College (PCC) in Oregon. 

At the time, I was interested in Romance Languages (French, Italian, and Spanish) and had aspirations of becoming a translator. Then a life-changing opportunity came my way. I enrolled at Wellesley College as a Davis Scholar, a program for non-traditional students who haven’t completed a bachelor's degree. 

I took Philosophy of Language my first semester at Wellesley and never looked back. In philosophy, I found a discipline devoted to questions I'd wrestled with since I was young. (Incidentally, children are natural philosophers and there is a growing movement to bring philosophy to K-12 classrooms.) 

My Wellesley professors took notice of my work, and I decided to pursue a life of teaching and research. I was admitted to the PhD program at Harvard, where I focused on two of the British Empiricists: John Locke (1632 – 1704) and David Hume (1711 – 1776). I wrote a master’s thesis on Hume’s account of causation and a dissertation on Locke’s theory of essences. My research led to conference presentations, journal articles (Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, Locke Studies, and Pacific Philosophical Quarterly), a tenure-track job at Saint Michael’s College in Burlington, Vermont, and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in 2020 – 2021. 

I’m proud of my research record, but the real test of my professional life is one I undergo every time I enter the classroom. I remember a colleague once remarking, “You’re only as good as your last class.” I can’t think of a more fitting description of the life of a teacher.   

I honed my craft in the classroom for almost a decade at Saint Michael’s, where I was tenured in 2019. It was confirmation of my success as an instructor, my value as a colleague and collaborator, and the quality of my research. I’d hit a career milestone, doing what I loved alongside dedicated colleagues, living in a city notable for its remarkable quality of life.

And then another life-changing opportunity came my way. I saw an advertisement for a Philosophy Instructor position at Edmonds College. Here was a chance to come full circle, professionally and personally. I was a beneficiary of the community college system in the neighboring state of Oregon, and I’d modeled my own teaching after my instructors at PCC. It would be hard to overstate the significance of returning to a two-year college like Edmonds, now as an instructor and former student. 

Meanwhile, the Pacific Northwest was calling me home: My partner had recently taken a job in Portland, my father was building a house near Hood Canal, and I was missing important milestones in my nephews’ lives. 

Almost three years on, I’m grateful for the opportunity to reflect on my path to Edmonds College, a place that has felt like home since I first stepped foot on campus.