My teaching goals are to design a program that motivates and mentors students through experiential learning. These experiences help students learn about themselves and to develop their analytical skills towards solving real issues. I personally benefited from these types of opportunities as a student. My goal would be to get students to ask

questions, learn how to test them, develop their field observational skills, and to assess them objectively. Through this process, I believe students can gain new skills that will help them professionally. Skills such as field observation and problem solving are important skills for any professional pest manager, researcher or gardener, but they are rarely taught in the classroom setting.