About Katherine Krauss
Hello, my name is Katherine Krauss. I am currently finishing my second year of study at Alma College, where I am a math and education major. I am so glad you want to know more about me. Find out what my hobbies and interests are, what I do on campus, a little about my life outside of school, and my adventures in Math and German.
Hometown: Jackson, MI
High School: Jackson High School
College: Alma College
Majors: Mathematics and Secondary Education
Minor: German
Siblings:One twin brother
Pets: An adorable dog named Rufus
High School: Jackson High School
College: Alma College
Majors: Mathematics and Secondary Education
Minor: German
Siblings:One twin brother
Pets: An adorable dog named Rufus
Life on Campus
Like many Alma students, I keep myself busy with classwork, student jobs, and involvement in a variety of clubs.
During my time at Alma, I have served as a Student Ministry Coordinator for Alma College Chapel, where I manage records and handle publicity. Additionally, I served as the student assistant to the mathematics department's biweekly newsletter The Almagest, contributing a variety of short articles to each publication. Additionally, I have been an active member of numerous student led organizations. As treasurer of German Club, I helped to organize games, prepare food, and manage tables at events such as our Christmas Market and spring Carnival while maintaining records and balancing the budget. Through this organization, I was able to create games that focus on German cultural elements such as Christmas traditions or famous fairy tales of Germany and to share German culture across campus I am also a member of the Education honorary, Kappa Delta Pi and served as treasurer of Education
Club. Through these organizations I help organize and volunteer at
events such as the monthly Story-time at Stucchi's, where local elementary
school students come for an evening of fun crafts and reading with
Education club, and Kids at College Day, that provided many foster
children with a day of fun activities on Alma's campus.
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Adventures in German and Math
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Ever since my first class of German my freshman year of high school, I have loved learning and slowly mastering this new language. Studying the language and culture of a different country has not only provided me with wonderful opportunities to travel to Germany through a three week exchange program the summer after my sophomore year of high school and once again practice my German when hosting the same student I visited the following fall. I also had the wonderful opportunity to study in the beautiful city of Kassel, Germany for seven weeks the summer of 2013.
During my time in the very city that the Brothers Grimm compiled their collection of fairy tales, I participated in daily intensive German courses, met wonderful people from countries around the world, stayed with a German host family, and even taught short grammar lessons to lower-level students.
I am also fortunate in the opportunities I have had to expand my math skills.Whether through a program like Math Counts in middle school, the ability to present my research on the generalization of the Pythagorean Theorem during Alma's Honors Day, or the chance to partake in an undergraduate research program the summer after my junior year in college, I have been also blessed with the ability to indulge my mathematical curiosity and inclinations. |
During the summer of 2014, I was enabled to participate in math education research through a research experience for undergrads offered at Illinois State University. There I not only conducted research in the field of graph theory, but also connected with fellow teachers of mathematics from around the country, helped to develop and host an investigatory research-based math camp for Chicago Public School students, and worked with research on supporting student generalization and investigation in the high school mathematics classroom.
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