Personal Narrative: My Interview With A Mentor

The woman that I had choose to interview is a Teacher, a mentor to many students, and a dear friend of mine. Her name is Andrea Micallef. She would say that she a Graphic Designer that came from Industry, not “Academia.” She used to freelance by doing Identity/Branding for companies (designed The Guitar Center logo) and taught at Universities. But she left all of that to teach at El Camino College (ECC) and is a volunteer for “Meals on Wheels.” The first time I had met Andrea was in the beginning of the spring semester of 2008 at ECC, when I was enrolled in her Typography class that she was teaching at the time. Frankly, my first impression of her was not positive. I felt that she was very intimidating and load-spoken. I wanted to drop the class after the first day, but I had to stay enrolled due to financial aid. However, after surviving a couple of months in her class, her style of teaching started to make sense. She was trying to teach us “how” to think instead of “what” to think. When I first came to ECC I was undeclared for years. I didn’t know what major to because I was always told that Art was just a hobby—not a career. I used to believe that until met her. I feel that I owe it to her because she

She continued by saying that she is “…a female,” and that she had “…only [known] being a woman” (Micallef, October 4, 2015). She remembers back when she was in school she wanted to play sports but could not because there were only boys’ teams. And later on when she started working, she had to train her boss’ replacement because she didn 't fit into the group male managers—even though she was qualified. And when she was finally promoted, she was the only female manager in the group and they would not invite her to the holiday golf outings or the occasional after work drink at a local