Get a Head Start on Your Career as a Teacher!

Since the age of five, I have known that I wanted to become a teacher. This has stuck with me through the years, so in choosing a college, I was thrilled to learn that Fordham has a Five Year Teacher Education Track. Students who choose to join this program enroll in seminars beginning as early as spring of their freshman year, during which Dr. Diana Caballero gives them the tools they need to apply for early admission into Fordham's Graduate School of Education. If admitted, they will begin taking graduate courses during their senior year and finish these courses during a fifth year at Lincoln Center. The results: both a bachelor's degree in a particular subject area and a Master's degree in education!

Once students show interest in officially applying for the program in the spring semester of junior year, they are recommended to do field experience to fully recognize whether or not teaching is truly for them. For instance, last semester, I volunteered as a teachers' aide at a second grade classroom at PS 205, a school that was only a 7 minute walk from campus. This was one of the most rewarding experiences of my college career so far, as I was able to actively participate in various aspects of the class such as helping students perfect their mathematics skills (I am a math major, so this was very important to me) and working with a small group on editing and writing short compositions. It was clear that the students greatly enjoyed learning, and having to part with them at the end of the semester was very difficult for both the students and me.

During my experiences as a preliminary member of the 5-Year Teacher Education Track, I fully realized that my true calling really is teaching. I am very excited to hopefully begin a new field placement at the Rosedale Tutoring Center and am looking forward to continuing with the process of becoming a certified teacher.