'He's Probably Playing Racquetball'
School to me has always been somewhat of a bore, which is why I myself still cannot wrap my head around the fact that once I graduate from college I am going to spend the foreseeable future back in a classroom, although this time I will be on the other side of it. I wanted to like math. I was good at simple math and mental math, but I truthfully still do not know how to multiply or divide fractions. However, reading and writing is what came naturally to me, and I somewhat enjoyed my English classes, but I wasn’t sure if I actually liked the subject itself, or just the grades I had been receiving in the class(es). After getting a 2 on the AP Language and Composition exam my junior year of high school, I did not think much more than I needed to about English or writing as a whole.
Being a first generation college student I felt like I was going into the process of applying to colleges blind. I wasn’t even eighteen yet, I didn’t feel like I had a strong enough passion about one specific subject to commit to, and the few career paths I did see myself pursuing, got met with the question, “but why?” by most of the important people in my life.
My dad made sure that my sister and I knew the value of money from a very early age, and I started making my own money at fourteen by babysitting, and I’ve had a job ever since, even while I am in school. I am grateful that my parents are able to help pay for my college education, but sometimes it feels like money is the most important factor regarding my education from my dad's perspective. I will never forget when I got my first college acceptance letter and he was the first person I wanted to tell, and instead of a “Congratulations” he met my good news with “that college is too expensive so don’t get your hopes up.” Although ultimately the major you declare and your career path isn’t decided by your parents, I do believe that my parents' constant conversations about money was why I could not confidently declare my major as English/Education. I felt like I would be disappointing them, especially since my sister is in school to be a doctor, but the passion I had for teaching and working with children was in the back of my mind for as long as I have been attending school.
I had many teachers throughout my schooling that I still think about from time to time, or occasionally even talk to, because of the lasting impact their class or them as a person had on me. I always wondered what it would be like to have my own classroom one day and have the space to make a (hopefully) lasting impact on my classroom of children. However, as I started getting older and my parents, or even my friends, would ask me what I wanted to ‘do’ or ‘be’ when I grew up, I never could confidently say I wanted to be a teacher, and that did not change until the end of my sophomore year of college. I had originally declared a major in Communications Sciences and Disorders because I figured I could still work with children, even in a school setting, and I would be making more money than I would if I had a different position in that school. However, I wanted to explore my options while I still had time, (you always have time, I just felt like the timeline I had for myself could not be altered), and I took an entry level education course with Dr. Zukergood.
Dr. Z started off our class by telling us how bad of a teacher he was right out of college and that we probably will be too. However, he spent the rest of the semester being a great professor and helping us not make the same mistakes he made while he was still learning. I continuously looked forward to attending this class every week and especially on the days we were going to St. Michael’s Academy to work with middle schoolers in a classroom setting (and of course I picked seventh grade math). I took this class in the spring of 2019, as a freshman in college, and it is still a class I think about often as a senior, and it is also the class that made me schedule a meeting with Dr. Z to discuss possibly switching my major to Education. When I walked into his office five minutes before my scheduled meeting, I was informed that he was going to be out of his office for the remainder of his office hours playing racquetball. I felt discouraged, but I scheduled another meeting, or at least I thought I did, because he wasn’t in his office during the allotted time the day of our second meeting as well, but I’m sure I could have found him in the athletic center playing racquetball.
After this experience I was turned off from the idea of pursuing an Education major, at least at this college, and I kept trying to like my CMDS classes, but all I ever enjoyed from those classes were the books and articles we had to read on our own time. As sophomore year rolled around and the classes I was required to take became more complex, I felt like I was stuck and I still had those lingering feelings about switching my major, and even Universities. With the global pandemic sending us home I had a lot of time to reflect on my education, experiences, and to look towards my future, all while getting back into the hobby or reading and writing for fun. I had to make a decision: remain comfortable or learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable, and that was when I finally told my parents I wanted to see where studying English and Education takes me.
I was excited, yet nervous, because as a rising junior I knew I had a lot of catching up to do if I wanted to finish my undergraduate degree in the year of 2022, and I was still waiting for my acceptance from Umass for the 2021 spring semester. After being at Umass for three semesters, I have found my love for learning again, which I think will reflect nicely when I start teaching. I love being an English major and I say that proudly to anyone who asks, even if my dad did snicker when first hearing about the reinvented plan I had for my future. I still think about Dr. Z from time to time and the things I learned in his class. Since it was pre-pandemic I sometimes wonder if I would have switched to being an education major or if English would’ve been the subject I chose, but with being a semester and a half away from finishing my undergraduate degree and having a job substitute teaching in my hometown middle school, I am more than happy with the position I am in currently.