Katy Niles
She/They
I will be teaching project lab, and I see my role as more of a guide and mentor for this class, assisting in self-initiated exploration and learning in a subject each student finds intriguing to them.
I strive to create a safe space for students so that learning can be engaging and exciting, not something to dread. My goal is to help students not only learn from and about external experiences, but also from internally, who they are, what drives them, what purpose they can find in the world, so as to build a more aware and compassionate community.
I self identify as genderqueer and my pronouns are she/they. Outside of teaching, I collect model horses as well as ride real horses, enjoy scale modeling, and am a huge Angel City FC Women’s Soccer fan. I consider myself a lifelong learner, trying to understand what makes us human, what makes the human experience unique, and how to live it fully–pains, joys, and uncertainties. My favorite quote is from Letters to a Young Poet by Rilke,
“I would like to beg you… to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”