User:Mtta/Abby gerdes

Abby Gerdes ... Abby Gerdes was born in Florence, South Carolina November 16, 1991 to Mike and Kim Gerdes.

Family and Childhood
She spent her childhood in Pennsylvania before moving to North Carolina in 5th grade to New Bern. She has a sister 3 years her junior named Morgan.

Academic Career and Ambitions
Gerdes is a classically trained pianist and i nhigh school she played tennis and was the President of hte Interact Rotary club. To diversify her experience with performance, she began to work at a music therapy class, Focus Therapy where she worked with autistic children, playing the piano. She also spent her time working with a pet boutique called Nauty Paws. Gerdes is majoring in English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and plans to become an English teacher. There, she has spent time as a journalist for the Daily Tarheel, and has written several articles Gerdes also has experience with tutoring. She worked as a tutor at a Durham Performance Learning Center. She worked 1 on 1 with studetns to bring supplemental material to make work more interesting. On her experience, Gerdes said "Because the curriculum  was all digital, I saw it as my job to make the learning more conversational." Gerdes is also involved in Scholars Latino Initiative which is a 3 year mentoring program that pairs a Latino high school sophomore with a college Sophomores in an effort to give mentees resources to prepare for a university. In the Summer of 2011 Gerdes attended a week long conference of 90 UNC undergrads called Carolina United. There, she talked about issues pertaining to diversity and identity. Gerdes enjoyed her experience so much that she decided to continue with it by counseling Summer 2012 Gerdes worked as an intern in Summer of 2012 in Success Academy Charter Schools in Manhatten on the instructional development team where she helped to organize and put together teacher training as well as research curricular material. Internship summer 2012 --success acadamey charter schools in Manhatten--worked on instructional development team--helped to organize and put together teacher training, research their curricular material

Personal
Gerdes originally wanted to go to a small liberal arts and always wanted to teach. In high school she became interested in English language and literature. She decided she wanted to attend UNC when her dad took her to UNC'S literary festival. After seeing the professors' presentations, she realized that even in a big school she would be able to find her place

Gerdes has a pet hedgehog named Stanley who eats cat food.