New math teacher offers career advice

New math teacher Mr. Willmore comes from a background of law, engineering, teaching college courses and everything in between. 

While Willmore now teaches, he started with engineering. 

Willmore went to Virginia Tech for undergraduate. “I’m glad I did… I got inducted into Eta Kappa Nu,” Willmore said.

Willmore also received a JD from William and Mary, a masters in computer sciences from George Washington University and a masters in finance from Johns Hopkins, a graduate certificate program in computer security, and became a PhD candidate at Rutgers University. 

“Once you’re a candidate means you’re basically free labor to teach the courses,” Willmore said.

He taught courses for Rutgers as well as working under a prior professor and in various law positions between different education experiences. He also lived in New York briefly.

“This isn’t going to work out,” Mr. Willmore said. This prompted him to move back and go back into law. 

After coming back to working in law he got an LLM (Masters in law) from George Mason and continued working in law, but said he wasn’t content.

“I missed teaching,” Willmore said. “I said no.” 

Following his decision he taught courses at Virginia Tech, and was a substitute teacher at Blacksburg High School and Christiansburg High School. He proceeded to get a masters in education from George Mason.

After working for South Lakes High School for three years he will continue his teaching career at Marshall.

“Don’t do something because you want the money or somebody else wants you to do it,” Willmore said. “Do it because you want to do it. That’ll make the difference.”