DR. REGINA KATZ

The Saigon Glory Newspaper is back with another segment of Keeping Up with the SSIS Teachers! In this continuation, we interviewed Dr. Katz, the teacher who loves snails and is famous for single-handedly teaching all the AP Biology classes in school.

Starting off with a few fun facts, Dr. Katz adores her pet poodle named Mochi, so much so that given the option to own any animal in the world as a pet, Dr. Katz would like to own another poodle just like Mochi.

Dr. Katz likes to keep a healthy lifestyle, so obviously her last meal would be some tasty and proteinful “greek yogurt with honey and macadamia nuts.”

Another fun fact is that Dr. Katz doesn’t like taking pills, even pills that can grant a superpower; she would rather take none.

When asked if there is any advice she’d like to offer to the SSIS high schoolers, Dr. Katz expressed the importance of staying in touch with high school friends, stating that as one gets older, it is a joyous experience to reminisce and discuss shared experiences from the past together.

For academic advice, Dr. Katz wants students to understand that one’s high school experience does not fully dictate their future. “You may not like science now but things change, your experiences in the process of entering university impacts your choices later in life.” Dr. Katz states. Unsurprisingly, her academic journey in university perfectly reflects this sentiment, starting as an architecture student that later transitioned to pre-med and psychology.

She was merely 16 years old when she graduated high school. Attending university was the first time that Dr. Katz went away from home. She recounted, “it was scary at first but later on I got used to being independent. I had a great time at the dorm. I learned how to budget my allowance and I gained a lot of new friends.”

Besides the arduous times though, life in university for Dr. Katz also presents some humorous moments. One instance of such is when she, being a sophomore who loved the subject, was expected to teach her zoology and microbiology classes during her professor’s absence, without pay!

After graduation, prior to attending medical school, Dr. Katz worked as an aerobics instructor, one of many eventful jobs she had before becoming a teacher in SSIS.