“I had a life plan.”

Michelle Grau ‘09 was one of those teenagers who thought she had it all figured out.

She had once dreamed of becoming an astronaut. When she was a senior at St. Francis High School and the team captain of the school’s robotics team, that life plan seemed obvious: she would attend Stanford, major in mechanical engineering, and become an engineer.

“I was one of those people who had a major, and it turns out that the things I wanted to do with my life were not that,” Michelle said.

Luckily for Michelle, what she did want to do was in the same realm, and looking back, she realized it early on. While Michelle was on the St. Francis robotics team, she also volunteered multiple days a week at middle schools, helping with youth robotics teams.

“That was kind of my epiphany,” Michelle said. “As much as I love building the robot myself, it turns out that the thing I might love more is teaching middle schoolers how to do it.”

It wasn’t until the end of college that she realized she could pursue that love professionally. While hosting a robotics competition at Stanford, she was approached by a program director at The Nueva School, a private PreK-12 school in San Mateo County, California.

“Do you know anyone interested in teaching engineering to kids?” Michelle recalled the program director saying.

“Yes! You would pay me to do this?” Michelle instantly knew it would be a match.

Michelle took the job upon graduation, and more than 10 years later, she is still extremely fulfilled in the role. She teaches middle schoolers during the day and coaches high schoolers in the afternoon. Most of her students are in 4th to 6th grade.

“The reason I love teaching those grades is that’s when kids get turned off or on to doing this kind of stuff,” Michelle explained. “So for me, it’s really important to be a role model for them.”

It’s especially rewarding for Michelle when she gets to watch the kids grow up and pursue careers in the field. Michelle shared the success story of one student who didn’t feel he was smart enough to join the robotics team. Now, years later, he is about to graduate with a Master’s in robotics engineering.

“It’s a unique privilege that I have in my job, getting to work with these kids across so many years,” Michelle said.

She hopes to be at The Nueva School for a very long time.

“Technology continues to change. As someone who’s teaching engineering and computer science, the things I’m teaching change also. There’s always a new tool. A new this, a new that,” Michelle explained. “I’m very much still always learning even 10 years later. Every day is still a new challenge.”

While Michelle feels there are more girls in robotics than when she started nearly two decades ago, there is still a long way to go when it comes to inclusivity.

“We want to create a more supportive and approachable environment,” Michelle said. “It’s still a work in progress.”

If Michelle could go back in time and give her St. Francis self some words of advice, what would she say?

“That’s a good question,” Michelle contemplated. “Probably that my grades were not actually the end-all-be-all. Maybe I didn’t need to stress about getting an A+ in every class all the time. It was not going to change my life trajectory, although I thought that it would. I would make more friends and have more fun.”

Michelle does keep in touch with most of her friends on the robotics team. She still remembers her teachers fondly.

“Mrs. Sharon, my AP Chemistry teacher, was the best,” Michelle said. “Some of the things I took away more than anything were thinking about some of my favorite teachers and how they taught class and trying to emulate that now as a teacher.”

Michelle isn’t just a robotics genius. She also loves to sew and is currently involved in aerial silks and adult gymnastics. 

Written by Frances Wang ‘10