The second semester has just recently begun and along with it came a new teacher: Melissa B. Golden. Golden teaches Chemistry and is in her second year of teaching here in Hillsborough County. However, she has tutored at the collegiate level for some time.

Golden has wanted to become a teacher her whole life, despite everyone telling her to not do it because of the low payment. She spent 10 years building up her career.

“I’m finally at a place where I can become a teacher. I love kids, especially the high school age. It’s really awesome to see kids go from kids to full on adults and you’ll be able to help them accomplish their goals. I think in the high school level they’re applying to colleges and things like that so its just really fun” Golden said.

Golden understands that not all of her students want to grow up and become a chemist, however she hopes to teach them that taking her class is more than just learning chemistry.

“My job here is to help them be prepared to be adults… It’s important for me to teach them that sometimes what is important about school is learning how to do difficult things from start to finish even when we don’t want to do them,” Golden stated.

When assessing her students, Golden likes to make sure that they understand what they have learned and do their work.

“I do a lot of formative assessments, a lot of everyday ‘did you understand what I did last time?’ In the state that we work in, Florida, we have a lot of data that we have to collect, so of course there’s tests, but for me, the biggest portion of their grade comes from classwork,” Golden said. “So if you’re sitting in here and are you learning and are you practicing what we are doing, if you do that, you pass my class”.

Golden’s goal is to make sure her students learn the subject because she believes it will help them in the future.

“I want to see the students retain a lot of this information, so I know I have a lot of juniors and when they go to college they are going to have to know this. I want them to definitely understand this material by the end of it and they are doing a great job already,” she said.

She also has some advice to give her students.

“If you teach your brain now as a teenager, if you teach your brain to not quit that is going to stay there. Your brain is going to solidify that decision making and you’re going to be a successful person in life no matter what you do.”

The students believe that Golden is very helpful and is doing a great job so far.

Mijah Burton (’23) said, “I think she’s a nice teacher, to be honest, she’s good at making sure we understand what she’s teaching us. The way she wants us to take notes is also helpful for when we have to do individual work.”