Meet Steve W.
Learning Assistance Center Education Specialist
“Wouldn't it be great if I can do this for a living some day?”
Sometimes just walking back into a classroom can inspire you to reinvent your future.
Steve Whitney, an education specialist in the college's Learning Assistance Center (LAC), spent 25 years as a working photographer, but when his website needed a re-boot some 14 years ago, he came to Hudson Valley for a web design course.
When he finished that course, Steve enrolled the next semester in Intermediate Algebra "for fun." That's right, he took algebra for fun. And he loved it. Precalculus, Calculus, Differential Equations followed soon after.
"When I was a student here and a peer tutor in the LAC I remember thinking to myself, "wouldn't it be great if I can do this for a living some day?"
Now a full-time education specialist with a bachelor's degree in mathematics from SUNY Empire State College and a master's degree in mathematics for teachers from Western New England University, Steve helps students with math every day in the LAC.
"Working with students, getting them to comprehend a topic, and seeing them ace a test because I helped them understand something, is great feeling. Working with students has enabled me to realize a talent and an interest that I didn't know I had."