When 19-year-old Aneta Galazka followed her father to the United States in 1994, she believed all things were possible.
"I had the idea that I can do whatever I wanted, that I didn’t need a college degree to be successful," Galazka said.
She was right—for a while.
In 2001, Galazka founded and owned a thriving construction business, Stone Solutions, in Marietta, Georgia, making custom granite countertops in the housing construction boom in the Atlanta area during the 2002-2008 bubble.
Then came The Great Recession, and although Galazka tried to keep the business afloat, in the end, she sold what was left of it in 2011. She has since come to realize the business failure was, for her, a blessing in disguise.
"I did a lot of thinking at the time about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life," she said. "I always wanted to be a teacher, and to do that, I needed a college degree.”
Galazka enrolled as a math major at UNG’s Gainesville Campus because it was closest to her home in Braselton, Georgia. Her original plan was to transfer to another school after a couple of years at UNG but she soon fell in love with the place.
“I felt like I mattered at UNG,” she said. “I loved the small class sizes, and because of my age, I was not intimated in approaching an instructor. I made a lot of friends there and I couldn’t imagine going anywhere else.”
Before graduating, Galazka spent 12 weeks at an internship at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Her research team project at NIST was setting up a high-speed wireless communications network for public safety agencies that would perform even in the event a cell tower is damaged or destroyed. In those three months with 192 students from 47 states, she found out a couple of things about herself.
"I can dream big and accomplish a lot when surrounded by people with similar minds," Galazka said. "I also learned about my own limits, and the need to put what I leaned in a textbook into practice."
In that vein, Galazka was awarded the 2018 Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellowship for science, technology, engineering, math (STEM) teachers. She was chosen as part of a 24-person cohort; in which she was awarded a $30,000 stipend towards graduate work. As a winner, Galazka is committed to working in a high-need urban or rural high school.
Galazka graduated in spring 2018 and is hoping to use her experience to better future students and generate enthusiasm around mathematics.
"People are so scared of math," she said. "But during my time at UNG, I’ve found the best instructors have real-life experience. I plan on being that kind of teacher—using the experience I’ve gained at UNG to make better students."
