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SY: Okay, so let's get back, so we were talking about working at Hughes and then deciding to go back to college, getting your degree. And then what happened next in terms of your education, profession?

GN: Well, so I completed my lower division at El Camino College, and so I enrolled at Cal State L.A. and I worked full time. And I would take, and they had, they were on a quarter system there and so I would take either two or three classes a quarter, but I would never take three math classes a quarter 'cause that's too much, and so that's what I did. So anyway, doing both like that, there are times when you get sick and you feel so tired and sick you might feel like quitting, but in my case the engineers that I worked with said that you had to make up your mind, that no matter how tired or how exhausted you are, you have to make up your mind that no matter what you're gonna finish, and that's what's gonna carry you through. And so they were right.

SY: So you were still working at Hughes and still going to Cal State L.A. at the same time.

GN: Yeah. And that's how I completed my upper division and got my, and then I could've gotten my degree a little bit earlier with a B.A., but you had to take, at that time, three more math classes, senior level math classes, in order to get a B.S. And I wanted to get a B.S., so that's what I did. Now I think you have to take, like, five more classes, when I looked at the catalog the last time.

SY: And so going back to school, what was your intention, eventually?

GN: Go into teaching.

SY: So you really, you wanted to leave the Hughes behind.

GN: Yeah. And so now I had to do student teaching to be able to teach, and so in order to do student teaching I'd have to put in more hours, so, in terms of the, getting the teaching credential, so I cut back, I was able to cut back my working hours to thirty-two hours a week and complete my student teaching. And so I got my student teaching credential, temporary one, and applied for a job as a math teacher. L.A. Unified had positions open, took a test, passed it, and I was offered a position at Jordan High School in Watts. And I wanted to teach high school; I didn't want to teach junior high, and so --

SY: Why was it that you wanted to leave Hughes?

GN: Because of my desire to have some impact on society, and I felt that one of the ways to do that is to go into teaching.

SY: And when did that desire start? When did you start feeling like that was something important?

GN: In 1969 I got involved with the Gardena Pioneer Project. That was just before I got my math degree. And I guess that's when it kind of happened.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.