Hello, Essays (570 words) - Health, United States, Minnesota

Hello, My name is Mike Burcusa and I will be your chemistry teacher for at least the fall semester this year. However, since is is not appropriate to call me by my first name, you can call me Mr. Burcusa, Burcusa or just Mr. B. This will be my third year teaching at Shakopee High School, and I am super excited for this year to begin, as we are going to do a lot of really fun and cool stuff this year. Teaching was not my first career choice, but it definitely was the best one that I have made. After graduating from Carleton College in 2001 with a degree in chemistry, I immediately began my career as a synthetic organic chemist at Pfizer Inc., at the time, the largest pharmaceutical company in the world. This job forced me to move from Minnesota to Groton, Connecticut. I stayed at Pfizer for two years, but then moved back to Minnesota in 2003 when I married my wife who was at the time a graduate student in psychology at the University of Minnesota. Upon moving back to Minnesota, I became employed at a much smaller pharmaceutical company here in Minnesota called CIMA Labs. I remained at CIMA Labs for the next 6 years, where I was employed as an analytical chemist and tasked with designing techniques to be used to determine the amount of drug in a tablet and to determine that the medicine in question operated exactly as it was intended to. After 6 years, I decided to go back to graduate school and enrolled in a Ph. D. program in the pharmaceutics department. As a graduate student, I studied physical chemistry and investigated the how pH (amount of acid or base) changes due to freezing a solution of drug dissolved in water as the temperature of the solution changes from room temperature to very low temperatures in which the water has been frozen. About 3 years into the program, I realized that my passion was not to work in the pharmaceutical field, but to work in education, so in about 2012, I decided, to leave graduate school with a master's degree and train to become licensed to teach high school chemistry. During this training, I completed two student teaching experiences at a Minneapolis-area middle school and then at South High School in Minneapolis. I do have interests that extend past chemistry. As you will hear throughout the school year, I am an avid fisherman in both open water as well as when the lake freezes. I generally fish for bass in the spring summer and fall, but will switch to fishing for walleye and lake trout when the lakes are covered with ice. I also enjoy following the local sports teams where I am most interested in the Twins, Vikings, Timberwolves and Gopher basketball and football. I also am roped into three fantasy football teams per year and tend to do fairly well in these leagues. This summer, I took my 4-year-old daughter, Rose, out of daycare and spent most of my time with her camping, fishing, gardening and watching various princess' movies. Rose, my wife and I also went on a 2-week road trip to five national parks including Glacier. I look forward to hearing from all of you giving me some of your background as we prepare to learn chemistry together this year!