When did you first develop an interest in maths and science? 

The funny thing is that I probably didn't actually start enjoying maths that much until later. I was always good at it when I was young, but it wasn’t until my practice teaching, which was when I was able to help students solve problems and see how they interpret them, and that's when I started to develop a strong passion for it. 

What did you do in university that helped you to start a career as a maths and science teacher? 

So, my background is kinesiology which is a study of movement and anatomy, so more biology and physics-based, because we studied a lot of biomechanics involving movements, angles and torsion and stuff like that. Then, I also did a minor in maths, mostly because my parents were quite adamant on that. Then I ended up doing my practice teaching in both maths and science, and now I’m here! 

Did you enjoy your time at university? 

Absolutely! I think any type of first year will tell you that it’s a bit of a learning curve in the beginning, because in high school you don't realise how much effort the teacher cuts out to help guide you, and you also also have your parents there to support and guide you. Suddenly you’re fully on your own in your first year, and you're like “I'm an adult but I'm also a child!” It was definitely a learning curve, and learning how to be independent and manage your time. Also, once I hit third or fourth year I got to go into subjects that I really enjoyed because that's when they're more specific and topic-based. I had a blast in college! 

You also coach the girls volleyball team here. How did you get into volleyball? 

Volleyball isn't actually my first sport - my first sport is swimming! From the time I was a baby to my twenties, swimming was my main thing, and it was my thing until I swam for the varsity team at university, and that’s when I began to really hate it. We had to train 10 times a week! It was a bit of dry land training, where we would do workouts on land, and then we did workouts in the pool, and it just sucked the fun out of it for me. After that, I didn't really know what sport to get into, so I think around my mid twenties I started developing a passion for volleyball. I started playing and played with a few different teams. So when I heard that a student wanted to start a volleyball team here in FIS, I figured I could pass on some of the knowledge and drills that I had learned before! 

If you could give any piece of advice to your younger self now what would it be and why? 

Don't be afraid to fail, and don’t take every failure at heart. I think that when you’re growing up, you have all these pressures, from competing with your peers to parental pressures. You’re constantly thinking ‘I need to do this, I need to be good at this, and oh I’m not good enough’. I think there was a period of time where I didn't think I was good enough and that is totally false! So I would say don't be afraid to fail and you are always, always good enough, no matter what! 

I think that’s great advice that we should all keep in mind. Thanks a lot to Ms Lai for her interview!