Hometown: Stavropol (Russia)
High school: Stavropol Municipal Educational Institution the High School №2
Semester Selected: Fall 2021

Who is someone (teacher, mentor, role model) in STEM you look up to and why? I don’t have favourites, every professor is a professional that can teach the same subject (in my case math) by different methods. But I have a professor who became my friend—John P. Stephenson who was math professor at SCC. On the first-second week of Calc.I class he gave us the material over One-Sided Limits, and I argued with him for the whole class section because he was partially wrong. That made us interested in each other, and we started to meet almost every week and firstly discuss about math and then about life.

What is one piece of advice you would give to someone considering a STEM major? Be prepared to spend hours and hours, first to read books and second to work over material on your own, sometimes struggling on a problem for couple of hours or even days. But this is a journey that is full of excitement and achievements!

What are you looking forward to in the STEM CONNECT program? 1. To get know other stem students and professors. 2. Find the new activities that related to mathematics. 3. Get a support from a coach when I am struggling with a problem.

What is one misconception about STEM that you want to break? Nowadays we cannot live without STEM studies because everything is related to it, but someone can say “why would I need to know mathematics if I don’t use it in everyday life”. Mathematics, for example, improves one's logical thinking/critical thinking.