Meet Gabriela Bizarro (she/her), a 9th-grade student at MSTMA at Roosevelt and Hollenbeck Middle School alum. We connected to discuss her love of math and her interest in STEM careers. Read more below. 

Gabriela is excited about attending MSTMA at Roosevelt because she has heard great things about the school and her middle school friends are also attending. She is excited about meeting new people and teachers, especially because she will be spending a lot of time with them. She is most excited about her new classes because she says, “They’ll be different than what I am used to.” 

Gabriela was part of the math club at Hollenbeck, where she worked closely with teacher Maria Ortiz and Al Lucero, Partnership’s senior director of advanced math and sciences. She shares that the club met once weekly, practicing often and exposing students to different word problems to prepare them for two Mathcounts Competitions, one held each semester. “Our school did pretty well,” she says proudly. During some of those meetings, SoCal Gas Company representatives also joined and encouraged them to pursue STEM courses and careers.

Math is something that Gabriela is immensely interested in. “I’ve always had fun in math; it’s always been an easier and fun subject for me,” she says. She finds that math is important because it has given her skills that she applies in her everyday life. “I use it to manage my time and my money.” 

Gabriela knows that she wants to pursue a STEM-related career and math is a big part of that. Her love for math has been a collaborative endeavor. She credits all of her math teachers and family members who are in the engineering and medical fields. Gabriela draws her inspiration from them and looks forward to what the future awaits.