“My name is Andrew Cho. This is my first year teaching here, but my fourth year in the district. I taught for three years at Washington, and I currently teach Chemistry and Chemistry Honors.

One thing I always want to do is go towards higher level chemistry classes, just because you get to do a lot more stuff. I saw that opportunity here at Irvington so I took it.

Through the Hello Rally I saw a really good community here at Irvington. Washington also had a good community, but rallies here are a lot more organized and engaging. I enjoyed that aspect of it, and I definitely look forward to seeing other similar activities this year.

What got me down the path of teaching was that as I started continuing through college, I started liking chemistry classes a lot less. Then I realized as I was tutoring friends, that I liked the teaching aspect of it a lot more. So I ended up taking more education classes, which was what brought me to becoming a teacher.

The school year feels kind of scary not knowing anyone here. At Washington, I started building rapport with the kids, which is hopefully something I can build here. It would be nice to get to know the kids, community, and other teachers. That’s something I’m really looking forward to here. 

My goal is to make Irvington feel like a second home. One thing that I really want to make sure of is that this feels like my classroom and my school, rather than somewhere I just switched to. That’s something I’m really trying to strive for – to feel like I’m a part of this community. 

My classroom is pretty chill. I try to make it so that kids are able to interact with each other, but I still think it’s a rigorous class. I always want my students to feel like if they ever take science classes in college, they feel prepared. AP classes are meant to prepare you as best as possible, but if you don’t end up taking those classes, because there’s a limited amount of space, I still want you to feel prepared. A lot of the time, I try to take things I learned from college and emulate those in lighter comparisons for my Honors classes.

I feel like I’m still pretty young, so I feel like I understand them. I try to be relatable, in terms of understanding what they talk about, their pop culture, things like that. I always try to reflect on: “How would I view myself if I was still in high school? What would I focus on? What are things that would stick to me? How can I make this relate to my students?”  That’s how I view my way of connecting and making sure that I inspire kids into science.

I play video games pretty regularly, mostly “League of Legends” and “Valorant”. I also collect Pokémon cards and keyboards — I have a collection of cards in my classroom. I still continue to swim, and am an ambassador for the Silicon Valley out here in Fremont. I’m also in a rec soccer league down in San Jose. One fun fact about me is that in high school, I actually used to listen to country music, which is probably something no one would expect from me.

One piece of advice I would give my students is to not take life so seriously. Kids in high school get so stressed out. They feel like their entire lives are dictated on these four years. Which is in some regards true, but you’ve got to take a step back and just enjoy the things you’re going through. High school is both stressful and an enjoyable time of your life. You’ve built a place where you get to hang out with people you’ve probably known since elementary school and you’ve gotten to build a community of friends. Enjoy these times. You only have them until you end up going to college, to jobs, moving away, and things like that. Live in the moment, try not to be so stressed about your future, and take what life gives you.”