BRadford B
I became a teacher because teaching, and learning, are a lifelong passion. I was born and raised in rural western Colorado; my younger sister and I were the third generation of our family to grow up in our small mountain town. Like almost all young people there, I attended our local public high school, and upon graduation became the first in my family to attend college. I credit this to, after God's grace, the constant support especially of my mother, whose selfless devotion inspires me to this day.
I started my higher education by earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy, with distinction in the major, from Yale University. I then attended law school at Cornell University, earning my JD. After practicing law for two years in a large corporate firm in New York City, which I found unsatisfying and lacking a healthy work-life balance, I changed careers. I returned west, specifically to southern California, and decided to return to the humanities, my first academic love. I was admitted to the PhD program in English literature at UC Berkeley, where I also did significant coursework in classics (Latin and ancient Greek).
While finishing my doctoral dissertation, I worked for five years teaching English literature and writing, AP U.S. history, Spanish, and other subjects with HS2 Academy, a private company in Orange County, CA. In 2015 I was hired to teach at ASU, where I've taught for the past nine years, in the Department of Interdisciplinary Humanities. Over the past fourteen years I've worked with countless (literally in the low thousands) students of different backgrounds, and I'm just as keen on teaching now as when I started! Some of my former students, now adults and married with children, remain dear friends, and it's an honor to have helped shape their path.
I recently joined the Focus Tutors team and am happy to work with students in the following areas: English language and literature; Spanish language; French language; Latin language; U.S. history; world history; U.S. government and civics; philosophy and religion; reading and writing support; general homework support; study skills.
One interesting aspect of my career change is that I have lived and worked in Seattle, Portland, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Los Angeles, and New York but finally came back "home" to teach at a school I attended. I am an alumnus of Hopi, Ingleside, and Arcadia ultimately graduating from ASU with a degree in Industrial Engineering before starting my international IT career.