Why I decided to teach & My Goals

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Why Teach?

When I was in Second grade, I remember that my class was asked to pick the top three things we wanted to be when we grew up. I remember picking, 1. Lawyer; 2. Writer; 3. Teacher.   Later on, around my freshman year of High School, I dreamed of becoming a Meteorologist and going to Cornell University. I had that dream until my junior year, when I took physics and a tough math class. That basically crushed me & my hopes. My Senior year, I knew I wanted to teach but wasn't sure what. I knew it would be science related. I received one of two scholarships (one for education majors, and one for non-education majors) from the Arlington Teacher's Association upon graduation in June 2002. I started my undergraduate studies at SUNY College at Oneonta as an Earth Science education major and I loved it. But when I took my first biology class at Oneonta, I was hooked. I changed my major to Adolescence Education: Biology and have been on that course for 2 1/2 years now. Fall 2006 I begin my student teaching. So why did I decide to stick with teaching? My grandmother was an ESL teacher in Westchester County, NY and I owe her a lot of credit & thanks for encouraging me and passing along valuable advice and education newspapers that she (still) receives. Currently, I am the President of the Association for Secondary Educators, as well as Beta Beta Beta, the National Biological Honors Society

My Goals in Life

For the next few years, my life will be soley dedicated to education and teaching. I plan on going straight to my Masters program in Spring 2007. I will either master in Elementary & Middle School education, get my extended degree for Middle School teaching. a Public Health degree in Epidemiology, or whatever comes my way. I would love to go somewhere warm, so I am thinking of possibly going to Chapel Hill, NC for my Masters work. Realistically, I will probably stay close to home and find a school with a good teaching program, maybe go somewhere in Massachusetts; I still have some time to figure this out. Eventually, I would like to run my own photography business, or work for an educational magazine, such as the National Association of Biology Teachers' American Biology Teacher, or Discovery.