Opal Brown

Student

“I just have a passion for mathematics. When I try to tell people about it, they say, ‘Math? Don’t say that word to me!’”

The self-described “former nerd” from Crenshaw High was last seen with a large bouquet of flowers. “Those were for my boyfriend,” said Opal Brown, who arrived here years ago from Jamaica. “There’ve been a lot of changes in me since school.” But one thing about Opal hasn’t changed much: her much sought-after abilities in mathematics.

“Am I tutoring? I’m tutoring on my lunch hour!” says the young woman whose gift with calculations leaves most of us in awe. “Math is the only subject that never gets on my nerves,” continues Opal. “I can just sit for hours being fascinated with problems and numbers. My real love is for teaching the subject, but I’m going into computer studies now, and I’ll probably combine the two fields in some way. If I go into pure teaching, I’ll probably go on to UC Irvine. But if I choose engineering, then it’s definitely Cal Poly Pomona.” Opal reports that she’s had good advice about teaching—and enough challenge, for once—in her classes with Salli Takenaka.

“Ms. Takenaka is my Math 8 teacher, and she always gets my attention,” says Opal. “She has this way of relating math to applications in the real world. And that’s helping me—when I’m tutoring in high school—to make math more useful and exciting to kids.” Opal says that SMC has been a place where she always feels “excited to be around all these people trying to learn. And there’s so much help for people here. You can always find someone who’s willing to give you a hand.” Maybe even with calculus, if Opal’s not already booked.

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