I would say that a teacher that really inspired me was my high school band teacher, Mr. Lampman. Over the course of four years, he was my mentor, my inspiration, and my biggest supporter. Whenever I needed help or was uncertain of something, he would always make time to talk to me and offer advice. When I told him that I was thinking about becoming a music major, he started meeting with me weekly to check in on how my progress was coming along and helping me take the next steps towards achieving my goal. To me, It made a huge difference to have someone who genuinely supported me. 

I also started doing an independent study for piano with him. He allowed me many opportunities to perform in front of the other bands to try to curb my performance anxiety, and he would introduce me to other musicians that were visiting so that I could see what a career in music could look like. 

It was such an honor to have someone like him in my life that I really admired and looked up to.  I would say that he is one of my biggest inspirations in wanting to become a teacher, because I want to be able to make an impact in a student's life the same way he did for me.

Currently I would say that my biggest project is becoming fluent in French. I am currently living in France on a study abroad program until the end of May. I’m thinking about becoming a French teacher and maybe one day living in France, so being here gives me the opportunity to see if I could envision myself going down this career path.

When I return home from France, I want to get back into playing piano and saxophone. I have a lot of piano works that I’m looking forward to learning, such as the third movement of the moonlight sonata and the revolutionary etude. For me, music has been such an integral part of my life ever since I was 7 years old, so it feels really weird to have music be absent from my life right now.  

My other projects for the near future would be starting my own podcast. I’m not sure of what my subject would be, but I think it would be really interesting to focus on different cultures. In the long term, I would say my projects would be learning other languages as well, such as Japanese and Spanish, and moving abroad to teach.  

This is one of my performances with my high school band. This was during my sophomore year in high school, and we were giving a mock concert before we went to play at a music conference in Grand Rapids, MI. I’m the saxophonist sitting on the edge!