Nathaniel Garcia

Nathaniel Garcia is the newest addition to the math department. Garcia was born and raised in Southern California. He is excited to return back to the high school after student teaching here in 2014. This is his first year working as a full time teacher. He is excited to be work with math everyday and to inspire students.

What did you do this summer?

This summer I dropped out of a PhD program in Southern California. Last year, I was in graduate school and my best friend was moving to New York. I had originally planned on staying in the graduate program, but I figured, “let’s spend some time together before you go all the way across the country.” So I took a summer job in San Francisco and was working in the mornings as a bike messenger. In the afternoon I taught test prep math. It is definitely not your standard summer.

What do you do in your free time?

Soccer has been a huge part of my life. I always say that math is the greatest love of my life, but no kid is immediately drawn to math. That came later in life. So my first love was always soccer. My dad is from Mexico, so soccer was just something that we did. I never played for competition, I always just played for fun.  I also have three bikes, which I love.

What was high school like for you?

A joke. People always get the wrong impression when I talk about high school. My family is not at all educated.  My mom and dad are smart people, but my dad came to this country when he was 16, dropped out of high school and never went back. My mom graduated high school but never went further than that.  My brother played D1 sports at a university but dropped out and never got his degree. The fact that I was academically inclined was odd. However, growing up, this idea of being involved in extracurriculars in school was nonexistent in my life. My brother and I went to school, came home, played soccer and that was it. I took the classes that I wanted, and out of sheer desire to not die of boredom, I took the harder ones.

If you could say one thing to the students at BHS, what would it be?

To relax. It is a blessing in my life that I have been able to pursue what I wanted to do. Because of my family background, I was never pushed, and my parents never expected much of me. I was free to pursue my own desires. Had they been in art, I would have been an artist, but they just happened to be in math. The concern for students’ grades here are for some external metric of achievement. I just look at it and think, “who cares”?

Is there anything else you would like to tell me?

Math is art. I always close with that statement. Math is Art.