Arriving at a new school is certainly very intimidating, but new teacher Ushana Mandava has found a way to make a home here at Chamblee High School. Mandava is a motivated and passionate chemistry teacher who adores her students and is very excited to continue her teaching journey. She loves helping her students prosper and succeed and explains that’s one of the things she enjoys most about teaching. 

“I love when the students are learning and when the students understand the material. It makes me very happy. I want the students to learn and go to college: that’s the reason I moved to Chamblee,” said Mandava. 

Mandava is very excited about being able to come to Chamblee and continue teaching chemistry, a beloved subject of hers. 

 “I am very fascinated about chemistry because everything around us is based on it,” said Mandava.  

Mandava’s love for chemistry blossomed in college, where she studied organic chemistry and earned the Broadway science degree, enabling her to teach any branch of science. She explains that she enjoys drawing pictures of organic compounds like alkanes. Mandava hopes for a future potentially teaching organic chemistry.

“If I could teach any other subject it would be environmental science, human anatomy, physical science, or biology,” said Mandava.

She wants to be able to teach kids chemistry as it is something that they will find useful later in their lives.

“I want to develop scientific skills among the students and those will be useful to them in their daily life. I want to make them confident about the subject since some students are not comfortable with it,” said Mandava. She is actively reaching out to students and hoping to support them in any way she can by reteaching topics, allowing retests, and extra support during bulldog time.

According to Mandava, Chamblee High School has surpassed her expectations. She says there is diversity here that she didn’t have at her prior school, and describes the students here as eager to learn and focused. 

“The other school I worked at lacked rules and some students did not follow them. There were some discipline problems and maybe some family issues, and so many other reasons,” said Mandava.

Although Mandava was very nervous upon arrival, she described the students and teachers at Chamblee as very welcoming. 

Outside of school, Mandava has various activities that she enjoys doing, like exercise and gardening.  

“I like to walk and then to garden. I used to do a five-kilometer walk and then half a marathon. I even did skydiving,” said Mandava. 

Along with gardening and exercise, Mandava loves to travel. 

“I have been to seven countries almost. I like Key West and I went to Kivus and did a lot of water activities,” said Mandava. 

She says that she hopes to visit Miami and Hawaii, as she would be able to experience all those activities again. For now, Mandava is focused solely on teaching chemistry, supporting her students, and getting used to how big the Chamblee High School building is.