<p>If you think that you are interested in teaching, you should enroll in an education course that has a classroom observation component. This will put you into a real live classroom for 45 hours or so in a semester. Most education programs now have lots of observation and teaching practicum opportunities. You wouldn’t necessarily be placed in an English or Chinese class, but where ever you are placed, you will be able to see what the teacher does, and you will be able to think about how this would work in your life.</p>
<p>Current teacher trainee advice that I hear: whatever you do, earn dual certification in special education. Even if that is not absolutely necessary for you to be hired, the coursework and practicums in special ed. will prove helpful when you are in a classroom that includes students with different learning issues.</p>
<p>And please have your mom read some of the threads in the Grad Students forum about just how awfully hard it is to get a full-time college professor job these days. Most college level instructors are working as adjuncts who are paid by the course. They have no job security, and often need to work at more than one institution in order to make enough to live on. Very, very, very few people make it through to the tenure-track, and that does not guarantee tenure. In many ways, teaching at the elementary, middle, or HS level is a better gig than teaching at the college level.</p>
<p>I’m only a junior in college studying abroad in England currently, but I do have a few recommendations.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Take the advice of those who say not to focus on a specific career too much while in college. I was exactly the same as a freshman, but the one thing I did right was to not let career notions get in the way of getting the education that I desired. Take classes that interest you, pick a major that includes the greatest number of classes that you would like to take. Engage in extracurriculars and internships and excite you. After a couple of years, you’ll have to start narrowing things down, but you’ll actually have a list of achievements and classes from which you might be able to begin to understand yourself. I by no means know what I’ll do for the rest of my life for a career, let alone right after college, though I have a few specific plans and a more generalized conception of the sort of skills that I possess and the sort of job functions that I would like to carry out.</p></li>
<li><p>I don’t mean this as a criticism, because, again, I did exactly the same thing, but almost every college freshman wants to “travel” and this generally leads to conceiving of a job that either includes travel or allows for it. The reason you have this desire is your lack of experience traveling, and if at all possible, I’d correct this while in college, rather than making life plans based around some vague notion of being able to travel. This is my third time to Europe, and my longest stay by far, and the more time I spend abroad, the less it feels any different in comparison to my time at “home.” Study abroad if you can in college, people often give reasons for it like “employers like to see it” or other types of professional reasons, but I think it’s greatest effect is a very personal one: by taking you out of your “life” and forcing you to establish a new one, you begin to develop a strong sense of yourself, which is essential to understanding what you would like to do for a career, among other things.</p></li>
<li><p>All careers will be challenging in one way or another, and all will be competitive in one way or another, the key is picking one in which you’ll have the energy to face a competitive job market as it’ll be tied essentially to your interests and talents. I agree with the advice of reading the Thomas Benton article, and reading the Chronicle of Higher Education in general, if you have any desire of teaching at the post-secondary level.</p></li>
<li><p>I’ve found career discussions with my parents to be rather entertaining, though occasionally frustrating. Everyone, my parents and myself included, would prefer if I knew exactly what I wanted to do, so I could develop a plan and pursue it to achieve my goals – unfortunately, life is not so easy. Understand that your mother will have a biased and out-dated perspective on many/most careers, so while you may take her thoughts as inspiration for further research of your own, be sure to thoroughly understand things for yourself.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>No, they aren’t. But it does help to have a partner in crime. Either way, having NO kids until things are stablized is the key. I’d be able to support myself.</p>
<p>We’ve talked about this, and he would have no problem traveling WITH me. We’ve talked about places we’ve wanted to go together. Of course there would be times where he wouldn’t be able to come, and I wouldn’t be “gallivanting” around the globe.</p>
<p>Anyway, you can’t live your life based on “what ifs”. “What ifs” can drive a person to insanity.</p>
<p>“OP, it sounds like you are talking yourself into teaching for the money.”</p>
<p>i don’t think so, at all. i think the OP is just being realistic about the whole thing & working on a plan. well, it all sounds great to me. just make sure u can get some quality volunteering time, if u can. plus, u still have time to be certain that teaching is what u want to do. personally, i would love to teach younger kids [pre-school-aged], but i just don’t know if i’m brave enough to openly defy my stubborn dad, who still thinks i’m becoming a doctor at this point, lol. anyways, gl :]</p>
<p>I’ve been thinking of becoming an HS teacher while working for a grad degree. Is it possible? I want to do both graduate-level research (my dream: publish an article in Nature) and teach high school kids. I kind of hate the way science was taught in my high school and I think I can come up with better methods of teaching it and make students love it (especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds) without compromising rigour.</p>
<p>I’ve been thinking about Teach for America but the acceptance rate is like 9%. So I’m kind of worried. (Are there any people who have been rejected by TFA but got into med school?) Are there any similar paths like TFA? Essentially it’s sort of an employment/matchmaking agency, right? Are there schools that will hire grad students without an education degree, only TFA-like training? Is the acceptance rate higher for math/science students, e.g. chemistry/neuroscience?</p>
<p>There are a lot of programs that are similar to and often better than Teach for America. Many are state based and some of them offer significant tuition or loan assistance so that you can pursue graduate studies while you teach: Mississippi Teaching Fellows comes to mind, there’s another program in New York City. </p>
<p>If you’re interested in teaching science however and you have some science background in college its a LOT easier to get into Teach for America. Schools are desperate for math and science teachers, even ones with little teacher training. But I would suggest looking for a non-TFA program that offers you better training and some kind of masters program assistance or loan benefits.</p>