San Dimas has a whole lot of math teachers but from math 2 to math 3 and math 3 Honors, can you guess who it is. From Sophomore to Senior year Ms. Perez was a Rock-Climbing Instructor at the University of Riverside. Her love for rock climbing express who she was as a person. She was the most outgoing and sporty person for the job. Having a job like this was very helpful for her to get out and explore what she actually wanted to do. This job also gave her a little more experience on how to help people, be calm, and stay busy all the time.
Going into her job, she had no experience nor no clue what she wanted to do. At UCR you get interviewed for multiple jobs such as a ref or a personal trainer and at the time Perez was just looking for a job. The departments were the ones who get to pick which job someone gets so, two people that picked her were the intermural sports and the rock climbing. During that time, she only wanted to work there because her friend worked there, no real reason.
Motivation and trust were the keys to this job. You are pretty much giving your life to someone while being put on a rope to climb up. Working as a rock-climbing instructor was a great job being at college because you get money, it’s on campus so you wouldn’t need to drive anywhere, and it would be a great experience if you have never rock climbed before. If you have rock climbed before you would know ” It’s kind of scary because people’s lives are in your hands on a rope.” said Ms. Perez
Ms. Perez’s whole school experience was an 11 out of 10. She loved being at UCR and loved everyone there. She felt as if she fit in and was a part of everything. Working at UCR made her life so much easier for her to meet new people on campus and get out of her comfort zone. Rock climbing was one of many memorable moments at UCR for Ms. Perez.
Becoming a math teacher was very out of the blue for Perez because all she thought about was rock climbing. ” I wasn’t always the smartest natural person in the room but I was always going to tutoring , and always going to office hours and then I would end up getting better grades than other people so people started asking me to tutor them and they just told me I was a good tutor so I think it was a mixture of me liking people and being good at math.”
She started at a middle school and did not like it at all but then someone didn’t let her quit. Her adviser told her to do this job as a backup, so she did. It took Perze 3 whole year to finally like the job. “It went against my personality. At first I was too nice, now I just have to be a jerk with telling people what to do and to put their phones away and do their work.” She has now been teaching for 9 years and absolutely loves it. Yes, she loved being an instructor, but teaching has more responsibility.
Perez is now one of the best math teachers at San Dimas High School. She loves being a Saint. The drive she has to help kids is huge as she has her door open before school, during 5th, lunch, and afterschool for kids that were just like her growing up. She got help and tutoring every day and as she became a teacher, she gave back the same thing she got. Perez inspires kids to be great no matter what through math and life. Math is her happiness, and it can be for some kids too.
