Teacher Feature: Mrs. Pajak
Mr. and Mrs. Pajak on their wedding day.
Mrs. Lauren Pajak has been teaching at Montrose for two years now, teaching upper school math classes including CP Precalculus, AP Calculus AB and BC, among others. Let’s take a deeper dive into Mrs. Pajak’s life before teaching at Montrose and before teaching altogether:
Mrs. Pajak grew up in Sayreville, New Jersey. While she didn’t play any sports, she was a part of her school’s marching band where she played the piccolo and the flute. The band played during Sayreville High’s football games, and a few times, they even got to play at Rutgers University where the state championship game was also held.
In middle school, Mrs. Pajak wanted to be an English teacher before deciding in high school that she wanted to be a history teacher. Then, she decided to become a math teacher as a senior in high school. She came to this decision due to both a great and not-so-great math teacher that she had in high school. Junior year, she had a VERY mean precalculus teacher, who, fun fact, ripped up Mrs. Pajak’s National Honor Society application right in front of her. However, senior year, in AP Calculus AB, Mrs. Pajak’s teacher, Mrs. Vasquez, helped her to truly understand math for the first time. Because of Mrs. Vasquez, Mrs. Pajak decided that she wanted to be a math teacher, so she could help students to truly understand math the way that Mrs. Vasquez did for her.
For college, Mrs. Pajak attended Rutgers University as a math major where she commuted from home. Her favorite classes were History of Math, Real Analysis, and Poetry. She also met her husband who was also a fellow math major in a class called Linear Algebra. The two got married in 2021 in North Carolina, where they were living at the time. Due to covid, their wedding guest list had to be downsized significantly, and they even had to change venues because their initial venue wouldn’t allow them to not wear masks, including for pictures. Soon after, they moved to Hopkinton, MA which was when Mrs. Pajak joined Montrose as their newest math teacher. Her favorite part of teaching at Montrose is the enthusiasm and great attitude of the students, and their excitement for math. Overall, Mrs. Pajak is a dedicated, enthusiastic math teacher who is an excellent addition to the math department here at Montrose!
By Kristina Klauzinski ‘24, Rising Sports Editor
