Brent Pickett

Math Instructor

As a high school student, Brent Pickett didn’t care much about calculus. In fact, he didn’t care much about school in general. So he took a couple years off before enrolling at Southwestern College, where a helpful instructor took him under her wing and re-taught him trig in five hours.

“It dawned on me that I could do this . . . and what a cool job it would be,” says Brent, who went on to earn his B.A. and M.A. from UC San Diego.

He taught part-time at SDSU and Grossmont College before coming on board at MiraCosta in 1992. Here, he teaches algebra, calculus, statistics, and survey of mathematics. He was also the first coordinator of the college’s Math Learning Center, now housed in the Library and Information Hub. Brent enjoys the challenge of teaching--in particular, helping students who are math-phobic.

“They need to get rid of a few obstacles and then they just explode, they learn so fast. People get excited because suddenly they’re getting it.”