The Student News Site of Westborough High School

The Lobby Observer

The Student News Site of Westborough High School

The Lobby Observer

The Student News Site of Westborough High School

The Lobby Observer

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Ms. Gustafson: Not All High-Tech

by Thea Softing

missgustafson_hiking1With her blonde hair, blue eyes and unusual name, Ingrid Gustafson is obviously a woman of Scandinavian descent. Although the instructional technology specialist was born in Shrewsbury Massachusetts, all four of her grandparents were Swedish, which is where she gets her Nordic looks. When asked if she can speak any Swedish, she gladly pronounces “varm choklad,” which translates into “hot chocolate,” adding that she would love to learn more sometime.

Born on December 4th 1981, Ms. Gustafson grew up in Shrewsbury, a small suburban town in central Massachusetts. She attended Shrewsbury High School before moving 283 miles to the University of Pennsylvania where she chose to study elementary education. During her high school and college years, she found technology very convenient, and used it frequently in her projects and presentations. She loved how she could include pictures, sound and video in her assignments and decided this was the kind of education she wanted to pursue. After undergraduate studies she traveled to New York City to attend graduate school, now wishing she had spent more time exploring and roaming around the actual city. Following grad school she traveled to Massachusetts again, specifically Shrewsbury’s neighbor, Westborough, where she landed a job as a physical education teacher at Mill Pond School. Hearing about a job opening as an instructional technology specialist at Westborough high School and Gibbons Middle School, she took the chance and switched gears to what she really loved to worked with- computers and technology. She currently helps the schools students and faculty with any technology curriculum problems and questions.

Another passion Ms. Gustafson has is for athletics and the outdoors. During high school and college she was involved in pole-vaulting for her track team, which she has kept up with, and now coaches at both Westborough and Shrewsbury. Ms. Gustafson also enjoys hiking, biking and racing. She competed in a tough 26.2-mile marathon two years ago, has hiked Wyoming’s national parks such as Yellowstone, officiates the track team and coached the freshman volleyball team with Coach Wensel during the fall.

Apart from teaching, coaching and participating in outdoor activities, Ms. Gustafson loves eating spicy buffalo chicken wings while watching movies. Her favorites include the Pixar movies such as Wall-E, suspense and thriller movies such as Star Wars and Indiana Jones, and her all-time favorites include Usual Suspects and Unbreakable. She stands out in the Westborough music scene by listening to “Anything but country and rap,” saying she “never really got into the country music everyone seems to listen to.”

Ms. Gustafson enjoys her job and considers it the perfect blend of what she loves to do. She is so glad she found this position, adding, “Westborough has very nice people and teachers.” She hopes to keep working here far into the future, and is hopefully keeping up on all the latest technology!

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