Daniel Newhart - Words of Wisdom
From Natalia Fernandez
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Teachers. Student: Teachers. Daniel: Yeah, I don’t think my parents, I think, I think my dad, I think my mom supported in her own way but she didn’t understand. My mom barely, you know, she graduated high school and then didn't go to college or anything, and like wasn't--- her education for her wasn't that important to her. My dad, like, I think felt threatened by smarts sometimes, and he told me something like that. So I was just like, I wouldn't talk to them that much. They would always be happy when they saw my report cards and stuff but that was the most that we talked about things. Whereas my teachers were the ones who would say things like, “Well you should consider, you should consider college.” And I'd be like, “What, what would my major be?” I just didn't know that, I didn't know what my college options were other than the colleges that I saw like played football, you know, that was it. And so like there was one college I learned about like specific to engineering, but I never would have heard of it because it didn't have a, well it had a sports team, but just like for division 4 or something, you know, they weren't you know, but I learned about that from my math teacher, for instance, so. Yeah but definitely teachers. Student: Who was your favorite teacher? Daniel: Oh gosh, probably the calc, the math teacher. He was good, he was like really helpful, really nice, and I found out later that him, the art teacher, and all of them hung out with each other, so like it made sense that the cool teachers like hung out with each other. The ones that people didn't like didn't hang out with anybody else, but the math teacher was pretty cool; he, the only bad thing about him was that he would drink this really gross coffee, he'd always lean over your shoulder. Student: Oh coffee breath! Daniel: Yeah, so I actually would not drink coffee until I came to the Pacific Northwest because I remember that smell and it was ooh! But my art teacher was pretty cool too. He just recently passed away but he really pushed me to think, I think he saw and knew from the other teachers that I was good at math and science and he made sure I was also at least trying to be good at art to like balance it out, and I think that really helped me. Student: Wow. Daniel: Yeah so. Student: Did you parents support you in college, financially? Daniel: Not financially, I mean they couldn't. They didn't have a lot of money, that sort of thing, they still don't have a lot of money. I would say my mom supported me emotionally, like she was really good at like, I don't know she would try to keep things normal as far as the family, she would call, she would ask me if I'd done my laundry, you know stuff like that. I think my dad, honestly, just didn't care or felt threatened, I'm not real sure which, but I think when I, like neither one of them came to my undergrad graduation for instance. I think my mom came to my graduation for my masters, and both of them came for my graduation for my PhD. So like I see that as over time that they started to value and support my education more, but it took like, I mean was in school for how many years, 4, 2, 6, yeah I was in undergrad for 5 years, so 5 and 6, so 11 years, and so I'd been in school for 11 years you know and to have them come to the end graduation it means a lot to me right? But it would have been nice kind of get support along the way too, but at the same time I didn't need it, you know. It was like, I was doing college, I wanted to go to college for me, and it wasn't about them and as much as it was I want to succeed and do well, at first that's why I wanted to. And now it's like okay, like I can have different conversations with my family as a result of going to college especially around politics, like right now oh my gosh, it's just really hard to have conversations with my family, but you know like being in college has trained me to, if somebody doesn't agree with you or doesn't want to listen, how do you still have a conversation in that space and that is something I learned. I was good at math but terrible at writing, I couldn't, I remember my English grades were always lower than my math grades and I was really worried when I took the SATs because I was pretty sure I was going to dominate with math and just be terrible at the verbals. I just remember studying dictionaries and stuff like that just to try to learn, but yeah and I still feel like I'm a terrible writer, like I tell my students too. I tell all my students that I use the Writing Center all the time because I'm like there is just something about writing that is really intimidating to me and I think it's cool to share that with my students because I think they all maybe feel intimidated too, but if their professor's saying to them I use it too, and I'd be happy to walk over there with you, I think that kind of breaks the barrier up. There are a lot of students in our master's programs who are amazing students but come from maybe not very high quality schools and didn't learn to write well and things like that and I think you know it's, I tell them just how important it is. I think about all the emails, like when I send an email to President Ray or whatever, like every word I'm so careful you know or whatever, but luckily I have the skills to make it so because I don't want to make a typo to President Ray because you know first off he is the president of the university but also I know like he uses, I've seen on his computer he magnifies his font really big so like a typo would be massive, right, so like I'm scared of that like if somebody else walks in the room, yeah anyway I know it's silly. Student: Oh, this guy! Daniel: Yeah.
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