Megan Holland
Q: If you won a gold medal in what you’re best at, what would it be?
A: “I think I’m pretty good at math. I think I would win a gold medal in a math test.”
Q: Were you always good at Math?
A: “So I was always good at math, but when I was in high school I took advanced math classes, but I was not that kid that was acing the advanced math classes. I was always that kid that was kinda being dragged along by the collar in the advanced math classes. So I didn’t feel smart necessarily.”
Q: What is your favorite out of the country trip?
A: “When I was in college, I had an opportunity to study abroad in Malta, which is a small island in the Mediterranean, and since then I’ve been back twice. It is my favorite place in the whole world. Just the culture, the history, it is beautiful. Well it is in the Mediterranean, so.”
Q: What was your first homecoming dance like?
A: “That’s interesting, our school didn’t have homecoming. We only had prom. It was fun. I enjoyed the dressing up and getting my hair done part, not much of a dancer, at least I wasn’t then. So that part was always so awkward. But I liked getting dressed up and taking pictures.”
Q: You were not born in Jersey, so why did you move there in your childhood?
A: “I was not born in New Jersey. I was born in Illinois. But we moved to New Jersey when I was around 2 and a half, so I basically spent my whole childhood growing up in New Jersey. So my dad worked in a financial industry, and when I was young he got a job offer in New York City, and so many people who work in New York City live in New Jersey and commute to the city. Fun fact. That first job was on the 104th floor of one of the Twin Towers.”
Q: What is the craziest thing you ever saw in New Jersey?
A: “Are you trying to say that New Jersey is full of crazy stuff?! How fascinating. I don’t believe that I witnessed any particularly crazy things. So for a kid growing up in New Jersey, it was pretty normal. Like we went to school and stuff. All that stuff you see on MTV and stuff, that’s just TV. I don’t recall in any crazy things.”
Q: So you went to college twice, is that right? How would you describe your college experience if you had to use 3 words/3 short phrases?
A: “So I went to JMU for my undergraduate degree. Which [makes] people wonder how you get from New Jersey to JMU, but it’s actually really common for people from New Jersey to come to school in Virginia. So actually a lot of the students in JMU are from New Jersey. So I went there and I studied integrated science and technology. I was a math minor. And then after I graduated, I thought that maybe I wanted to teach, so then I went back and got a Master’s at UVA and that’s how I ended up teaching. It was fast. And it was fun. And engaging.”
Q: If you could visit any fictional place, where would it be?
A: “Hogwarts. It would be unfair to pretend I read the whole series, but I did enjoy the first book.”
Q: What is the funniest memory you have of your children?
A: “So this was this summer, and my parents were talking to my daughter. And she is kinda like a busy body, like all 5 year-old girls are. And I think that she had overheard something and repeated something and my mom said, ‘She’s just like her mother, she never misses a thing!’ And Julia goes, ‘Oh mom misses stuff all the time!’ That was just a recent example.”