Kristin Holmes is one of Commack’s computer science and math teachers, but her plan did not always include becoming an educator or pursuing a career related to computer science.
When she started college, she wanted to major in Greek Classics, assuming she would become a college professor or something along those lines.
“I took a computer science class and I [thought] I want to do that, but they wouldn’t let me do straight computer science, and the other thing that worked well with it was math. […] My father though, when I was going to college, said ‘You could always be a math teacher, you’d be good at that,’ which 25 years later, I ended up doing that,” said computer science teacher Kristin Holmes.
In the interim, before she eventually decided to teach, she worked in business. She worked for Grumman as a robotics and artificial intelligence researcher and then transferred to Reuters where she worked in finance and news organizations developing AI and network management.
“We built two online trading systems that traded foreign currencies. So, the smallest amount you could trade was a million dollars, and it all ran across our network, so we did that […]”, said Holmes.
Holmes, who at the time held the Vice President position, left the company and looked for a different career that interested her. During her time working in business, she would volunteer to teach local elementary schools about business. She would come in for roughly one hour and teach about how business is done, the principles of it, and how it works. Based on that experience, she chose to go back to college and get a teaching degree.
Holmes has been an educator for 19 years now and she is board certified to teach computer science and math. She teaches College Pre-Calculus, Intro to Programming with Python, AP Computer Science A, and IB Computer Science.
“I was a state lead for defining the standards for computer science. [The board] met in Albany, came up with standards, vetted them repeatedly, and went through a verification operation that finally got accepted by the board of region. Then they went through and said once they have standards, then they can go certify teachers. […] I’m certified to teach computer science K-12,” said Holmes.
Being taught by a teacher like Holmes displays to students the versatility of achievement one can achieve in their career. She is a teacher who loves to make connections with students and gets much joy out of teaching about math and computer science.◼️
