What Are My Circumstances?
Not everyone goes into a Masters program immediately after graduating with their Bachelors. I am told (and I did come to discover this as well) that many people in my classes were similar to me in what I was dealing with outside of going to school. So here's what I had going on:
- I have a full-time job as a teacher (I started during my 5th year as a teacher, so I already had a teaching license and experience)
- I'm married
- I have a toddler (he turned 3 right around when I graduated)
- I opted to take on a full-time courseload (while still giving myself permission to scale back if it ever became too much)
- The school I attended and the school where I work helped me pay for my tuition, so the financial load was lessened a little bit
Why Did I Start?
My full Masters is in Educational Studies with a concentration in Teaching College English. In my state, there is a program called College in the Schools through the University of Minnesota. It's a concurrent enrollment program meaning that high school students can enroll in these courses and earn both high school and college credit at the same time. I have wanted to do this for years, but the main thing I needed was experience in the classroom (3 years) and a Masters degree (there's a little more to this, but simply put, that's what I needed). I had been told that, especially with teaching younger high school students, it could take a toll and I might want to find ways to save my sanity. Working with more mature students could help. I also love writing and teaching this particular writing class that I was striving to apply for would allow me to dig into the craft and practice of writing and prepare students for the future, especially if it included college.
What Did I Learn?
Now that it's been about 6 months since graduation, I have been sitting in this post-graduate bubble and figuring out how my Masters has impacted my life so far. Just to get my head on straight, here are the positives, surprises, and even some disappointments I've noticed so far:
Positive: I'm teaching a college class!
- This is the best thing that has come of this! Even though I'm teaching a new class at my high school, there is an application process that I had to go through at the University of Minnesota in order to be able to teach this class. I'm so relieved that I didn't have to wait to teach this class and that the work I did was enough to get a chance. Because I have limited experience with upper high school, that could have been enough of a reason for them to say no to me teaching this class. I'm so happy that they gave me a chance.
- I've been becoming more and more aware of this since graduating. Having a Masters degree means that more schools are willing to look at me. I can even teach at community colleges and/or as an adjunct at colleges and universities. I've been feeling really restless in my job lately and even just knowing that I don't have to be stuck is a little bit relieving. Like, I don't have to be a high school teacher until the day I die if I don't want to be. What a cool feeling.
- Perhaps the trade-off of having new professional possibilities is feeling a lot of restlessness and doubt about where I'm currently at professionally. This is a much more complicated conversation that I probably won't get into here.
- One reason I decided to go for my Masters was so I could move up in the pay schedule. I don't know if other types of jobs have this, but I can more or less look ahead in my career and have an idea about what I would make with a certain amount of experience and with a certain level of education (not precisely because inflation and such is taken into account each year and is adjusted accordingly). So I was excited to see that there was a decent bump in my salary! But after taxes and when it's translated into a bi-monthly paycheck... it's not very noticeable. I felt really dumb. That's partially a me problem-- I clearly didn't do my math right and had some false ideas-- and partially a choice in how my school chooses to pay its employees. That's the reality of the type of school where I work.
- This is another oversight of mine. I think I had it in my head that everything would be hunky-dory as soon as I started teaching this new class and working with the University of Minnesota. But there's a bit of a learning curve. I haven't quite gotten the hang of the grading load and the things I've been doing in class are, for the most part, not my own. I'm recycling a lot of materials from the previous teacher and using as much as I can from my cohort's already existing materials. It's devoid of my own take on things so it feels really foreign right now. I know this is something that will improve with time
- I loved not being the teacher for a while. I loved talking with classmates and professors about subjects we were exploring and learning about. I liked the writing that I got to do, even if I complained about the workload in the moment. I look back on that work fondly now. Being a student is a different kind of pressure than being the teacher and I appreciated the challenge! I don't know if I will take university courses in the future (and I have serious doubts about pursuing a doctorate at the moment), but I will absolutely be pursuing opportunities to continue learning even outside of my field of study.
Ultimately, I do not regret starting a Masters program. It was a tough two years, but we (my family and I) made it work. I'm really proud of myself for working through my program. Since I'm still fairly fresh out of my program, I'm excited to see how things continue to develop and how I'll feel about this experience a year or more after the fact.
No comments:
Post a Comment