Things on the employment front are going swimmingly. My district mailed me a contract so I have official confirmation that I have a job. Naturally, it arrived at my parents' the day after I headed down to the Delta to take care of a few things so I haven't gotten it turned back in yet, but I'll get it signed and sent in tomorrow. I'll be paid the princely sum of $35,811 next year.
The boy got a dollar an hour raise. This has no impact on my finances whatsoever, but it still makes me happy. He's planning to rework his budget to take this into account. The fact that he has a budget makes me even more happy.
Showing posts with label career. Show all posts
Showing posts with label career. Show all posts
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Self doubt and selfishness.
It's time to get serious about the rest of my life. I need to register for tests and start studying in earnest, blocking out the hours a day to devote to binging on esoteric vocabulary words and learning to speed solve tricky physics problems. Once I get going in earnest, maybe this queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach will disappear.
I'll be without a stout safety net for the first time in my life. Before I even sent in my application, my state university offered me a substantial scholarship so I knew that even if they found me unworthy of a bigger, more prestigious fellowship and the other schools rejected me, I was going to be able to go to college. When I was worrying over my Teach For America application, I was reasonably certain that the graduate education program at my university would be happy to have me, even though I did let self doubt get the better of me at times. However, I've watched a decent physics student set his sights too high and get rejected by every school he applied to, plus a couple of others get a long list of rejections and ultimately land somewhere thanks primarily to faculty members talking to friends in other departments in the hopes of securing a slot in an unexpected opening.
Plus, the competition has grown more fierce since the recession makes jobs in industry much harder to come by. The top physics student in this year's graduating class initially got rejected by a school my professors considered a good fit for me last year, back before I let my physics skills atrophy, and he's a much stronger candidate than I could have been. The school in question has gone to a points based system for evaluating candidates where they look mostly at grades and scores. Somehow I don't think they give points for accomplishments like helping a fourteen year old finally master adding fractions or writing grant proposals to get a bunch of impoverished high school students ACT prep materials. And they probably shouldn't: it doesn't demonstrate physics skills.
There's always going to be a thought lurking in the back of my mind that I'm not good enough. I'm not that brilliant; I'll never be Feynman, Maxwell, Bohr, or Newton. I get by by the skin of my teeth, with plenty of difficulty and with support from wonderful mentors. My chief virtue isn't in being innately gifted, it's in continuing to plod along even though I'm not. I still worry that someday soon I'll reach material that I simply won't be able to master, no matter how hard I try, that the math will throw a brick wall in my path and it will turn out that I'm not an unstoppable object after all.
Then there's the other problem with becoming a scientist: I dreamt of my kids last night. After this last year, they are my kids. I may not have done much good, but the problem of educational inequity is now my problem in a way it wasn't when I joined this crazy organization. Trust me, if you'd spent a year in one of these schools, you'd be mad as hell too. Spending another year in the classroom may help a few kids, and that's worth doing, but it doesn't begin to touch our country's deeper educational and cultural problems. I might do a little more to help if I were more like my friends, considering careers in educational administration, counseling, or non-profit administration, like my cousin's girlfriend the social worker, like my boyfriend's mother the attorney ad litem for kids in foster care.
Yet I'd rather study science. I don't think I'd be good at any of those noble professions. I like teaching, but liked teaching college students as well, and I miss the lab. I'll probably never cure a dreaded disease or solve our energy problems, but that's okay, that isn't why I want to do this.
I don't think I'm romanticizing the job of being a researcher. Doing science often isn't glorious. There aren't a ton of eureka moments. You spend a lot of time writing grant proposals that might not get funded, plotting eighteen billion graphs to make meaning of those strings of raw data, waiting for the repair guy to get the immunofluorescent microscope in working order, aligning the optics so your laser beam hits at precisely the right angle, or analyzing why your filters have exploded and spewed your painstakingly prepared sample all over the floor again. Often, though, you do get to investigate neat things, and even the question of why the gosh darned filters are exploding (or whatever the similar problem in your lab happens to be) is an interesting puzzle when looked at in the right light. Ultimately, I can't think of anything more exciting than getting paid to be curious.
I'll be without a stout safety net for the first time in my life. Before I even sent in my application, my state university offered me a substantial scholarship so I knew that even if they found me unworthy of a bigger, more prestigious fellowship and the other schools rejected me, I was going to be able to go to college. When I was worrying over my Teach For America application, I was reasonably certain that the graduate education program at my university would be happy to have me, even though I did let self doubt get the better of me at times. However, I've watched a decent physics student set his sights too high and get rejected by every school he applied to, plus a couple of others get a long list of rejections and ultimately land somewhere thanks primarily to faculty members talking to friends in other departments in the hopes of securing a slot in an unexpected opening.
Plus, the competition has grown more fierce since the recession makes jobs in industry much harder to come by. The top physics student in this year's graduating class initially got rejected by a school my professors considered a good fit for me last year, back before I let my physics skills atrophy, and he's a much stronger candidate than I could have been. The school in question has gone to a points based system for evaluating candidates where they look mostly at grades and scores. Somehow I don't think they give points for accomplishments like helping a fourteen year old finally master adding fractions or writing grant proposals to get a bunch of impoverished high school students ACT prep materials. And they probably shouldn't: it doesn't demonstrate physics skills.
There's always going to be a thought lurking in the back of my mind that I'm not good enough. I'm not that brilliant; I'll never be Feynman, Maxwell, Bohr, or Newton. I get by by the skin of my teeth, with plenty of difficulty and with support from wonderful mentors. My chief virtue isn't in being innately gifted, it's in continuing to plod along even though I'm not. I still worry that someday soon I'll reach material that I simply won't be able to master, no matter how hard I try, that the math will throw a brick wall in my path and it will turn out that I'm not an unstoppable object after all.
Then there's the other problem with becoming a scientist: I dreamt of my kids last night. After this last year, they are my kids. I may not have done much good, but the problem of educational inequity is now my problem in a way it wasn't when I joined this crazy organization. Trust me, if you'd spent a year in one of these schools, you'd be mad as hell too. Spending another year in the classroom may help a few kids, and that's worth doing, but it doesn't begin to touch our country's deeper educational and cultural problems. I might do a little more to help if I were more like my friends, considering careers in educational administration, counseling, or non-profit administration, like my cousin's girlfriend the social worker, like my boyfriend's mother the attorney ad litem for kids in foster care.
Yet I'd rather study science. I don't think I'd be good at any of those noble professions. I like teaching, but liked teaching college students as well, and I miss the lab. I'll probably never cure a dreaded disease or solve our energy problems, but that's okay, that isn't why I want to do this.
I don't think I'm romanticizing the job of being a researcher. Doing science often isn't glorious. There aren't a ton of eureka moments. You spend a lot of time writing grant proposals that might not get funded, plotting eighteen billion graphs to make meaning of those strings of raw data, waiting for the repair guy to get the immunofluorescent microscope in working order, aligning the optics so your laser beam hits at precisely the right angle, or analyzing why your filters have exploded and spewed your painstakingly prepared sample all over the floor again. Often, though, you do get to investigate neat things, and even the question of why the gosh darned filters are exploding (or whatever the similar problem in your lab happens to be) is an interesting puzzle when looked at in the right light. Ultimately, I can't think of anything more exciting than getting paid to be curious.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
I hope I have a job.
My district has, at long last, hired a new high school principal and superintendent. I heard about the new principal immediately after the school board voted thanks to a text message from somebody actually at the meeting, and a cheer went up at the table of TFAs having dinner at a Mexican restaurant, mainly because they hired someone from outside the district. That's about all we know about the guy at this point, but given the current state of our administration, that alone is cause for a little renewed optimism.
Now if only they'd get around to hiring some teachers. For a while, I quit worrying because my official observation and evaluation went pretty well. My assistant principal had a lot of praise for how much he thinks I've improved over the course of the year. He offered a couple of constructive suggestions as well, reiterated his desire to be supportive, and seemed genuinely surprised when I asked whether he intended to recommend me for contract renewal. Funny that he wouldn't understand why I was concerned when he was one of the administrators who told the entire faculty that we needed to "get it together or find other professions" (not quite as bad as when the superintendent/acting principal threatened to fire everyone, but still). The second years assured us all that the previous year nobody had gotten new contracts until the very end of the school year.
The end of the school year has come and gone, and there still aren't any contracts. Older teachers have said that sometimes the school mails contracts out during the summer and that there was one year when they didn't actually get around to hiring anyone until a couple of weeks after the new school year started. Apparently, they expect everyone to show up whether we formally have jobs or not. Somehow I do not find this particularly reassuring.
Now if only they'd get around to hiring some teachers. For a while, I quit worrying because my official observation and evaluation went pretty well. My assistant principal had a lot of praise for how much he thinks I've improved over the course of the year. He offered a couple of constructive suggestions as well, reiterated his desire to be supportive, and seemed genuinely surprised when I asked whether he intended to recommend me for contract renewal. Funny that he wouldn't understand why I was concerned when he was one of the administrators who told the entire faculty that we needed to "get it together or find other professions" (not quite as bad as when the superintendent/acting principal threatened to fire everyone, but still). The second years assured us all that the previous year nobody had gotten new contracts until the very end of the school year.
The end of the school year has come and gone, and there still aren't any contracts. Older teachers have said that sometimes the school mails contracts out during the summer and that there was one year when they didn't actually get around to hiring anyone until a couple of weeks after the new school year started. Apparently, they expect everyone to show up whether we formally have jobs or not. Somehow I do not find this particularly reassuring.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Great news: I'm not qualified for a job I don't want!
It turns out the folks manning the literacy lab this summer have to be certified English teachers. Maybe that isn't the greatest news on the financial front, but it'll do wonders for my sanity. It's going to create problems for our poor English department head since she's got to figure out staffing when her department is losing somewhere between 1/2 and 5/6 of its teachers. (Two TFA teachers and one non-trad licensee have done their two years and are heading out, and there's one elderly teacher who is still waffling about whether to retire this year and one teacher who is considering making her first year in the district her last.) Again, a sad situation, but ultimately not my problem.
I may be adding one more summer activity to my calendar, however. My department head suggested a week long summer program that sounds highly relevant to my classroom practice, offers a smidge of graduate credit, and would provide a few nifty tech toys to use when I go back to school in the fall. Best of all, they offer full funding for the course and a $650 stipend to everyone they accept. Fingers crossed.
I may be adding one more summer activity to my calendar, however. My department head suggested a week long summer program that sounds highly relevant to my classroom practice, offers a smidge of graduate credit, and would provide a few nifty tech toys to use when I go back to school in the fall. Best of all, they offer full funding for the course and a $650 stipend to everyone they accept. Fingers crossed.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Things I learned this weekend
I was off at a conference this weekend where I learned a lot of things you might find mildly interesting if you teach high school freshmen. Odds are, you don't fall into that category so here are a few other things I learned:
Renting a van from a rent-to-own furniture store to save a few bucks probably isn't worth it. The initial plan of renting a giant SUV from a reputable national car rental chain got vetoed, and we ended up in a minivan the district hired from a furniture store. It was filthy inside, and after we got up to fifty miles per hour, the handling became alarming. We took it back and the guy at the store offered us another minivan that wouldn't even start. After a bit of fussing, the store guy took the first van to get it checked out and discovered that the treads were separating from one of the tires. The van was more or less okay after that, and by more or less okay I mean it didn't start making horrible noises until we were back within our own city limits.
Posh hotels can be fun. Fancy suites, cooked to order breakfasts, seriously comfortable beds, guitar players each evening, and indoor pools and hot tubs are nice amenities. I can understand why people like to vacation this way instead of spending a few hours in a Motel 6 and/or driving straight through on the way to a relative's house where they'll end up sleeping on the floor.
A sex on the beach is yummy. The hotel where we were staying had a free reception every night, and I decided to partake after my head principal, assistant principal, the woman from the central admin office, and the mentor teacher assigned to me by the district all ordered drinks. It turns out that mentor teacher gives good advice about drinks as well as students. I consumed half a drink Friday night and one and a half drinks Saturday night, putting my total alcohol consumption this calendar year at two drinks. This is on the heels of my unprecedented five drink December! Thus, I'll probably lay off the booze for at least the next couple of months.
It's possible to turn a profit on a nice weekend away for work. I can turn in receipts to get reimbursed by the district for Friday's dinner and today's gas station snacks. However, Saturday is a different story: because we were away on school business all day, we will be receiving a per diem of $42. It doesn't matter that breakfast was provided by the hotel and lunch was offered at the workshop. I spent $1.50 on a cash tip at a buffet Friday night, $9 on a touristy activity that everyone else wanted to do Saturday evening, $1 on tipping the bartender, and $5 on dinner and tip on Saturday (Hurray for cheap and filling cups of soup!). My assistant principal isn't sure whether this will be the case on this trip, but she said people have gotten paid for working on Saturday while off attending these sorts of things in the past.
All in all, it was a pleasant and productive trip.
Renting a van from a rent-to-own furniture store to save a few bucks probably isn't worth it. The initial plan of renting a giant SUV from a reputable national car rental chain got vetoed, and we ended up in a minivan the district hired from a furniture store. It was filthy inside, and after we got up to fifty miles per hour, the handling became alarming. We took it back and the guy at the store offered us another minivan that wouldn't even start. After a bit of fussing, the store guy took the first van to get it checked out and discovered that the treads were separating from one of the tires. The van was more or less okay after that, and by more or less okay I mean it didn't start making horrible noises until we were back within our own city limits.
Posh hotels can be fun. Fancy suites, cooked to order breakfasts, seriously comfortable beds, guitar players each evening, and indoor pools and hot tubs are nice amenities. I can understand why people like to vacation this way instead of spending a few hours in a Motel 6 and/or driving straight through on the way to a relative's house where they'll end up sleeping on the floor.
A sex on the beach is yummy. The hotel where we were staying had a free reception every night, and I decided to partake after my head principal, assistant principal, the woman from the central admin office, and the mentor teacher assigned to me by the district all ordered drinks. It turns out that mentor teacher gives good advice about drinks as well as students. I consumed half a drink Friday night and one and a half drinks Saturday night, putting my total alcohol consumption this calendar year at two drinks. This is on the heels of my unprecedented five drink December! Thus, I'll probably lay off the booze for at least the next couple of months.
It's possible to turn a profit on a nice weekend away for work. I can turn in receipts to get reimbursed by the district for Friday's dinner and today's gas station snacks. However, Saturday is a different story: because we were away on school business all day, we will be receiving a per diem of $42. It doesn't matter that breakfast was provided by the hotel and lunch was offered at the workshop. I spent $1.50 on a cash tip at a buffet Friday night, $9 on a touristy activity that everyone else wanted to do Saturday evening, $1 on tipping the bartender, and $5 on dinner and tip on Saturday (Hurray for cheap and filling cups of soup!). My assistant principal isn't sure whether this will be the case on this trip, but she said people have gotten paid for working on Saturday while off attending these sorts of things in the past.
All in all, it was a pleasant and productive trip.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Evaluation
I still haven't been officially observed for my annual evaluation. There was a food fight on Friday immediately before I was scheduled to be observed, and they couldn't spare the assistant principal. I think today he just forgot about me.
Still, today was one of those days that left me feeling pretty good about being here, even though I had to write two people up for cursing me out. (Seriously, if I have given you the teacher look, silently given you a "shh" gesture, attempted to use proximity, quietly asked two separate times that you face the front and stop talking to the girl behind you, and you are still turned around talking very loudly and distracting your classmates who're supposed to be taking notes, I have every right to ask you to move to a different seat of my choosing. I'm not out to get you, I just need you to stop interfering with the education of your classmates. If you'd been willing to do that instead of refusing to move and telling me, "S***! F*** you, motherf***er!" I would have been delighted to have you in class.)
One of my great seniors came in telling me that she got a scholarship that she insists she wouldn't have gotten if I hadn't helped her put together her resume. (Honestly, she's amazing so I hope she would have gotten it anyway, but it feels good to be appreciated.) My anatomy classes keep demonstrating that, despite occasional appearances to the contrary, most of them really have learned a lot. (Does this mean that my attempt to keep spiraling a set of core biology concepts into every unit is actually yielding results?)
As I walked down the hall at the end of the day, I heard behind me a murmur followed by a loud, impassioned, "Don't say that about her! That's my favorite teacher!" My champion was, to my shock, one of my less enthusiastic students. I wasn't aware that she likes me, and I'm not sure why she does. Last semester I caught her cheating on an exam, and the zero she received ended up dropping her grade significantly. She tends to grumble a lot about how much they have to work in my class, and she frequently insists that I expect way too much of my students. This semester, she's been rising to meet my expectations, even as she complains. Still, she doesn't seem to be overwhelmingly fond of the subject matter or my class.
I don't think I've done anything special for her. She isn't one of the kids for whom I've written letters of recommendation or with whom I've gone through revision after revision of college essays. I've lent her a calculator and an ACT prep book and have spent a few minutes here and there helping her with a bit of remedial algebra, but that's no more than I'd do for anyone. I occasionally ask about her daughter, who is in the terrible twos and is thus the subject of many funny and cute anecdotes. Mostly, I just come in every day and do my best to make sure that little girl's mother walks out of my class knowing more than when she came in. Maybe that's enough.
Still, today was one of those days that left me feeling pretty good about being here, even though I had to write two people up for cursing me out. (Seriously, if I have given you the teacher look, silently given you a "shh" gesture, attempted to use proximity, quietly asked two separate times that you face the front and stop talking to the girl behind you, and you are still turned around talking very loudly and distracting your classmates who're supposed to be taking notes, I have every right to ask you to move to a different seat of my choosing. I'm not out to get you, I just need you to stop interfering with the education of your classmates. If you'd been willing to do that instead of refusing to move and telling me, "S***! F*** you, motherf***er!" I would have been delighted to have you in class.)
One of my great seniors came in telling me that she got a scholarship that she insists she wouldn't have gotten if I hadn't helped her put together her resume. (Honestly, she's amazing so I hope she would have gotten it anyway, but it feels good to be appreciated.) My anatomy classes keep demonstrating that, despite occasional appearances to the contrary, most of them really have learned a lot. (Does this mean that my attempt to keep spiraling a set of core biology concepts into every unit is actually yielding results?)
As I walked down the hall at the end of the day, I heard behind me a murmur followed by a loud, impassioned, "Don't say that about her! That's my favorite teacher!" My champion was, to my shock, one of my less enthusiastic students. I wasn't aware that she likes me, and I'm not sure why she does. Last semester I caught her cheating on an exam, and the zero she received ended up dropping her grade significantly. She tends to grumble a lot about how much they have to work in my class, and she frequently insists that I expect way too much of my students. This semester, she's been rising to meet my expectations, even as she complains. Still, she doesn't seem to be overwhelmingly fond of the subject matter or my class.
I don't think I've done anything special for her. She isn't one of the kids for whom I've written letters of recommendation or with whom I've gone through revision after revision of college essays. I've lent her a calculator and an ACT prep book and have spent a few minutes here and there helping her with a bit of remedial algebra, but that's no more than I'd do for anyone. I occasionally ask about her daughter, who is in the terrible twos and is thus the subject of many funny and cute anecdotes. Mostly, I just come in every day and do my best to make sure that little girl's mother walks out of my class knowing more than when she came in. Maybe that's enough.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
The life of a teacher.
It's the first Saturday of spring break. Naturally, I've been up since before 6 a.m. so I can go take a very expensive math test, partly so I'll be more employable elsewhere and partly because I've learned that our calculus "teacher" isn't bothering to actually instruct his students, offering to just give them all A's instead, so I'm plotting a very polite, very quiet coup. Then I just have a unit on the nervous system to plan, a stack of quizzes to grade, and a stack of essays to grade. The rest of the week is mine, and I hope my ninth graders don't forget everything they've learned about bonding in the meantime!
Monday, January 19, 2009
And the first person I know to be laid off in the recession is...
My mom. Policy counts at the insurance agency where she works three days a week are down a bit, and there isn't as much work because when people keep their old cars and houses rather than going out and buying new ones you don't have to deal with setting up new policies. Things are slow enough that her boss has decided her job can now be spread among the other people in the office.
So she's going to be down to one part time job soon, two shifts a week at the pizzeria where she's worked since long before I was born. Naturally, she's bummed. She's been working at the insurance office since November of 2005, and, while she never really enjoyed her job there, it doesn't feel good to be let go. She's also not so happy about having to figure out what to do next (more on that later).
It isn't going to be a financial disaster for my parents, at least in the short term. They have a paid-off house, lots of money in the bank, and live on substantially less than they bring in. My mom has always made way less than my dad so the only financial impact her losing this job will have will be to decrease their savings rate, not that that's a good thing for people who're turning fifty six this year and trying to save as much as possible for retirement in the limited time they have left, but it could be much worse.
So she's going to be down to one part time job soon, two shifts a week at the pizzeria where she's worked since long before I was born. Naturally, she's bummed. She's been working at the insurance office since November of 2005, and, while she never really enjoyed her job there, it doesn't feel good to be let go. She's also not so happy about having to figure out what to do next (more on that later).
It isn't going to be a financial disaster for my parents, at least in the short term. They have a paid-off house, lots of money in the bank, and live on substantially less than they bring in. My mom has always made way less than my dad so the only financial impact her losing this job will have will be to decrease their savings rate, not that that's a good thing for people who're turning fifty six this year and trying to save as much as possible for retirement in the limited time they have left, but it could be much worse.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Work.
I'm not quitting my job, not this year at least. If I had it to do over again, I would probably have chosen a different path, perhaps one that involved teaching in a sane school district, but I'm here now so I should make the best of it, even when it sucks, which is often. There are moments when I wonder how I can possibly make this work, like when I had to call security to haul out the bully who decided to threaten one of the special education students or when I deal with one particular kid in my homeroom who has decided he hates my guts and is going to tell me so loudly, repeatedly, and in the most disrespectful manner possible in class every day. There are the days when I wonder why I'm part of this, like when we had staff development and some of my colleagues started yelling at the workshop leader about how he could not possibly have anything valuable to offer because he didn't grow up a poor, black child in the Delta. Then the principal joined in and started ranting about a documentary he considers to be a "KIPP propaganda film" and things just went downhill from there.
Then, of course, I learned that one of my favorite kids made a 12 on the ACT last month. One of my most diligent students asked me at the end of class one day what one could do besides teach if one decided to study anatomy in college, and I now have a swarm of seniors asking me for advice on applying to college. I met the enchanting toddler daughter of one of my seniors, and I couldn't imagine walking out on her father and his classmates. I'm still not good at this, but I'm needed here nonetheless.
Then, of course, I learned that one of my favorite kids made a 12 on the ACT last month. One of my most diligent students asked me at the end of class one day what one could do besides teach if one decided to study anatomy in college, and I now have a swarm of seniors asking me for advice on applying to college. I met the enchanting toddler daughter of one of my seniors, and I couldn't imagine walking out on her father and his classmates. I'm still not good at this, but I'm needed here nonetheless.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Bigger and better things.
I had a job I was good at, once, spending the odd Saturday working in my art teacher's son-in-law's plant nursery. My qualifications were impeccable: I was young, able-bodied, and willing to work for a pittance. It was fantastic. I'd come out of the chill and drizzle to a bright, verdant paradise heavily perfumed by the microbes in the fresh loam.
I screwed up at first, adding fertilizer pellets that would have burned the plants' tender roots, but my boss noticed, I owned up to the mistake, and he patiently showed me what to do differently. From then on, the work was simple and pleasant, filling pots with soil, transplanting flowers, adding fertilizer, and hauling the pots across the greenhouse to hoist up and hang along the irrigation tubes. My boss praised me for doing my job efficiently, with no qualms about getting covered in dirt in the process and no proclivity toward getting sidetracked by conversation. I proved useful in other ways, as well, using my meager knowledge of Spanish to translate for my boss and the two men whose task it was to mix the soil, a job that required a worker with a strong back, but not necessarily a command of English.
So went my days, plodding cheerily on in my own little world, carrying out my small tasks and listening to Patsy Cline on the radio. At lunchtime, the boss's wife brought us hot dogs, and we rested, telling dumb jokes and washing our meals down with icy Cokes. When evening came, I'd survey the rows of petunias and impatiens before heading home, aching and filthy, eager to stumble into a hot shower.
It couldn't last, of course. I had ambitions and so headed off to university. When the summers came, I sought employment that would further those ambitions, and, with transcripts full of A's and letters from learned professors attesting that I was bright and diligent, I found plenty of labs willing to induct the newest bottle washer and button pusher into the profession. So my days played out under sterile hoods that reeked of ethanol and in basement laboratories lit only by the laser light and the dim glow of ancient computer monitors.
My tasks were less clear cut than in the greenhouse, and I struggled mightily at times. I found eighty-seven ways not to stain rat hippocampus for immunofluorescent microscopy and watched filters explode again and again. It took weeks and months to develop the techniques to get crotchety equipment to yield meaningful results. I wrote painfully dull grant proposals.
On the best of days, I sat for hours in the dark pushing buttons and adjusting settings while watching my proteins dance to the Brandenburg Concertos as a squiggly line produced by inscrutable software. When I managed to steal away for five minutes while waiting for heaters to come up to temperature, I generally devoured a granola bar and a stick of reduced fat string cheese in the windowless office adjoining the lab. At the end of a day, if I was very lucky, I'd have some grainy pictures of red and green blobs or a string of numbers that hours of analysis would turn into meaningful graphs, and I was eventually able to cobble together a poster and a thesis. I clung to the hope that my techniques might help the biology lab progress in their effort to help treat stroke victims or that my protein denaturation data might provide some clue to some latter-day Watson and Crick unraveling the mysteries of life.
As my undergraduate career drew to a close, I began seeking yet another job. After writing essays, getting still more letters of recommendation, and going through interviews, I somehow managed to dupe people into believing that I was not just a good student, I was a problem-solver, a striver, a potential leader in a grand movement. It was enough to get me a position teaching science in a room where the grey paint peels from the cabinets and the students litter the floor with wrappers from their forbidden sweets.
I fail daily here. Even when it works, it isn't enough, never really enough, for significant gains. I worry that I'm actually widening the achievement gap. The best sound I can hope for is a moment of silence, an instant where every student is on task instead of chattering or striving to invent new ways to annoy me or his neighbors. I rarely eat lunch, save perhaps a packet of the saltines some clever student keeps leaving on my desk, as I spend my time grading and planning. At the end of each day, I head home with a headache and another bag full of failing quizzes to grade. I pray that someday some student will be better off for my having been here, that something he learned from me about Newton's Laws, ionic bonds, pseudostratified epithelial tissues, or how to study and solve a problem will make a difference, and he'll end up with a career instead of a dead end job or with some new spark of curiosity about the world, or at least there will be one fewer poor black kid in prison or on welfare, but, honestly, I doubt it.
I screwed up at first, adding fertilizer pellets that would have burned the plants' tender roots, but my boss noticed, I owned up to the mistake, and he patiently showed me what to do differently. From then on, the work was simple and pleasant, filling pots with soil, transplanting flowers, adding fertilizer, and hauling the pots across the greenhouse to hoist up and hang along the irrigation tubes. My boss praised me for doing my job efficiently, with no qualms about getting covered in dirt in the process and no proclivity toward getting sidetracked by conversation. I proved useful in other ways, as well, using my meager knowledge of Spanish to translate for my boss and the two men whose task it was to mix the soil, a job that required a worker with a strong back, but not necessarily a command of English.
So went my days, plodding cheerily on in my own little world, carrying out my small tasks and listening to Patsy Cline on the radio. At lunchtime, the boss's wife brought us hot dogs, and we rested, telling dumb jokes and washing our meals down with icy Cokes. When evening came, I'd survey the rows of petunias and impatiens before heading home, aching and filthy, eager to stumble into a hot shower.
It couldn't last, of course. I had ambitions and so headed off to university. When the summers came, I sought employment that would further those ambitions, and, with transcripts full of A's and letters from learned professors attesting that I was bright and diligent, I found plenty of labs willing to induct the newest bottle washer and button pusher into the profession. So my days played out under sterile hoods that reeked of ethanol and in basement laboratories lit only by the laser light and the dim glow of ancient computer monitors.
My tasks were less clear cut than in the greenhouse, and I struggled mightily at times. I found eighty-seven ways not to stain rat hippocampus for immunofluorescent microscopy and watched filters explode again and again. It took weeks and months to develop the techniques to get crotchety equipment to yield meaningful results. I wrote painfully dull grant proposals.
On the best of days, I sat for hours in the dark pushing buttons and adjusting settings while watching my proteins dance to the Brandenburg Concertos as a squiggly line produced by inscrutable software. When I managed to steal away for five minutes while waiting for heaters to come up to temperature, I generally devoured a granola bar and a stick of reduced fat string cheese in the windowless office adjoining the lab. At the end of a day, if I was very lucky, I'd have some grainy pictures of red and green blobs or a string of numbers that hours of analysis would turn into meaningful graphs, and I was eventually able to cobble together a poster and a thesis. I clung to the hope that my techniques might help the biology lab progress in their effort to help treat stroke victims or that my protein denaturation data might provide some clue to some latter-day Watson and Crick unraveling the mysteries of life.
As my undergraduate career drew to a close, I began seeking yet another job. After writing essays, getting still more letters of recommendation, and going through interviews, I somehow managed to dupe people into believing that I was not just a good student, I was a problem-solver, a striver, a potential leader in a grand movement. It was enough to get me a position teaching science in a room where the grey paint peels from the cabinets and the students litter the floor with wrappers from their forbidden sweets.
I fail daily here. Even when it works, it isn't enough, never really enough, for significant gains. I worry that I'm actually widening the achievement gap. The best sound I can hope for is a moment of silence, an instant where every student is on task instead of chattering or striving to invent new ways to annoy me or his neighbors. I rarely eat lunch, save perhaps a packet of the saltines some clever student keeps leaving on my desk, as I spend my time grading and planning. At the end of each day, I head home with a headache and another bag full of failing quizzes to grade. I pray that someday some student will be better off for my having been here, that something he learned from me about Newton's Laws, ionic bonds, pseudostratified epithelial tissues, or how to study and solve a problem will make a difference, and he'll end up with a career instead of a dead end job or with some new spark of curiosity about the world, or at least there will be one fewer poor black kid in prison or on welfare, but, honestly, I doubt it.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
There's always an opportunity cost.
One of the many nice aspects of being assigned to the Mississippi Delta is the chance to get a masters in education for free through a program that offers an assistantship for a community project rather than serving as a teaching assistant. I'd assumed that I'd want to sign up, but now I'm having second thoughts.
Teaching is going to be time consuming. There's no way around that. Starting a graduate program in my second semester as a high school teacher sounds like a great way to increase my stress levels, but I think I could probably handle it.
The going to school full-time during the summer part is the problem. I'm going to spend this summer at Institute trying to learn about teaching while teaching summer school in Houston. Last summer I worked in the physics lab full-time as an undergraduate researcher, and I spent two months before my junior year living in New York in order to work full-time in a molecular biology lab there. The summer before my sophomore year I took two semesters of organic chemistry. I like productive vacations, but I may need to focus next summer on tasks other than coursework.
If I want to get a Ph.D. in physics, the dreaded Physics GRE is the next big hurdle. Everyone I've talked to describes it as a grueling experience, in no small part because it doesn't reflect how anyone actually does physics. The key to success is memorizing vast numbers of equations, constants, and terms and being able to solve problems very, very quickly. Six months preparation time is recommended, making sure to work through all of University Physics I through Modern Physics until you know it cold and going back over your notes from upper division classes to refresh your memory of various key problem types. If I'm going to have a prayer of doing well enough to get into a good physics graduate program after spending time away from enforced discipline of being a student, I'm going to have to make studying for the test my top priority next summer.
It would be much easier if I knew what I want to do with my life. If teaching in a secondary classroom is going to be a long term career, then getting a masters in education is clearly the right choice. If I'm going to miss higher level physics and research enough to want to become a professor and teach at the college level instead, then I need to hit the GRE prep as hard as possible. Unfortunately, the only thing I'm truly certain of tonight is that I really don't want to do my electromagnetism homework right now.
Teaching is going to be time consuming. There's no way around that. Starting a graduate program in my second semester as a high school teacher sounds like a great way to increase my stress levels, but I think I could probably handle it.
The going to school full-time during the summer part is the problem. I'm going to spend this summer at Institute trying to learn about teaching while teaching summer school in Houston. Last summer I worked in the physics lab full-time as an undergraduate researcher, and I spent two months before my junior year living in New York in order to work full-time in a molecular biology lab there. The summer before my sophomore year I took two semesters of organic chemistry. I like productive vacations, but I may need to focus next summer on tasks other than coursework.
If I want to get a Ph.D. in physics, the dreaded Physics GRE is the next big hurdle. Everyone I've talked to describes it as a grueling experience, in no small part because it doesn't reflect how anyone actually does physics. The key to success is memorizing vast numbers of equations, constants, and terms and being able to solve problems very, very quickly. Six months preparation time is recommended, making sure to work through all of University Physics I through Modern Physics until you know it cold and going back over your notes from upper division classes to refresh your memory of various key problem types. If I'm going to have a prayer of doing well enough to get into a good physics graduate program after spending time away from enforced discipline of being a student, I'm going to have to make studying for the test my top priority next summer.
It would be much easier if I knew what I want to do with my life. If teaching in a secondary classroom is going to be a long term career, then getting a masters in education is clearly the right choice. If I'm going to miss higher level physics and research enough to want to become a professor and teach at the college level instead, then I need to hit the GRE prep as hard as possible. Unfortunately, the only thing I'm truly certain of tonight is that I really don't want to do my electromagnetism homework right now.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Why is everyone so determined to give me money?
It's weird. I haven't been going out of my way to look for employment other than summers of research where the great pay was a less important consideration than the lab experience, but people in authority keep offering great opportunities.
Last semester, I was co-TAing a University Physics I lab section (unpaid), and then my advisor asked me to consider tutoring a student in the class who needed some extra help. The student was a joy to work with, helped make me a better instructor for my class, and paid enough to cover my grocery bills for the semester. Funding from a state research grant I received enabled me to pay myself to do thesis research this semester. A fellowship that didn't even require an additional application means I'll get a signing bonus this summer.
I've just received an email offering me a job I didn't know existed and can't take. The math department offers one partial TA position to a student in the master's program in teaching, paying him or her $3,000 a semester in exchange for teaching a two-hour-a-week remedial evening class and spending four hours a week providing algebra help in the tutoring center. The professor who offered me the position knows (or at least knew) I'm going to do Teach for America, plus I'll only have a minor in math, so I'm quite surprised I was considered at all. I'm drafting a polite note letting her know that if I didn't have other plans I'd jump at this chance but I cannot accept the job.
Is it normal to feel a bit guilty about my good luck? People keep talking about how hard I've worked, but it doesn't feel like it. I haven't really sacrificed. I have certain aptitudes that prove useful, and I'm a hedonist whose preferred pleasures tend to be academic in nature. Yes, I put in time and effort; this is just what I do. Some of my activities have put me in contact with people who share my interests and are in a position to guide me toward interesting opportunities, but I haven't made an effort to network, it just happened. There are a lot of people around me who really strive for success, and it doesn't seems fair that I can just drift along and achieve the same results.
Last semester, I was co-TAing a University Physics I lab section (unpaid), and then my advisor asked me to consider tutoring a student in the class who needed some extra help. The student was a joy to work with, helped make me a better instructor for my class, and paid enough to cover my grocery bills for the semester. Funding from a state research grant I received enabled me to pay myself to do thesis research this semester. A fellowship that didn't even require an additional application means I'll get a signing bonus this summer.
I've just received an email offering me a job I didn't know existed and can't take. The math department offers one partial TA position to a student in the master's program in teaching, paying him or her $3,000 a semester in exchange for teaching a two-hour-a-week remedial evening class and spending four hours a week providing algebra help in the tutoring center. The professor who offered me the position knows (or at least knew) I'm going to do Teach for America, plus I'll only have a minor in math, so I'm quite surprised I was considered at all. I'm drafting a polite note letting her know that if I didn't have other plans I'd jump at this chance but I cannot accept the job.
Is it normal to feel a bit guilty about my good luck? People keep talking about how hard I've worked, but it doesn't feel like it. I haven't really sacrificed. I have certain aptitudes that prove useful, and I'm a hedonist whose preferred pleasures tend to be academic in nature. Yes, I put in time and effort; this is just what I do. Some of my activities have put me in contact with people who share my interests and are in a position to guide me toward interesting opportunities, but I haven't made an effort to network, it just happened. There are a lot of people around me who really strive for success, and it doesn't seems fair that I can just drift along and achieve the same results.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Dad's Job Situation
Things have turned out as well as they could have given that my dad's department no longer exists. My dad will be continuing to do essentially what he does now and remaining under his current boss; his workplace can't function without someone doing what my dad does, and right now he's the only one there with the necessary skill set.
His company handled the whole thing really poorly. The people making decisions displayed no understanding of what my dad actually does. My dad's boss's boss had to fight higher ups who didn't understand why they couldn't lay my engineer father off and just have machinists take over everything he does. They also laid off all of the machinists in the department, even though they knew they were going to keep at least two of them. Today they proceeded to call two of the machinists to offer them their jobs back, and they decided they needed them by the second shift tonight. The guys they decided to rehire were out job hunting and could not be reached.
There was one positive note for my dad. In the days following the announcement about his department, the leaders of two other departments stopped by to ask my dad to come work for them. He's happy to know he's valued, and even though he isn't planning to switch jobs anytime soon, having other options is nice.
His company handled the whole thing really poorly. The people making decisions displayed no understanding of what my dad actually does. My dad's boss's boss had to fight higher ups who didn't understand why they couldn't lay my engineer father off and just have machinists take over everything he does. They also laid off all of the machinists in the department, even though they knew they were going to keep at least two of them. Today they proceeded to call two of the machinists to offer them their jobs back, and they decided they needed them by the second shift tonight. The guys they decided to rehire were out job hunting and could not be reached.
There was one positive note for my dad. In the days following the announcement about his department, the leaders of two other departments stopped by to ask my dad to come work for them. He's happy to know he's valued, and even though he isn't planning to switch jobs anytime soon, having other options is nice.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
I'm not in this for the money.
Obviously, people don't join Teach for America for the money. Becoming a public school teacher in a high poverty area isn't the most lucrative option most college graduates have available, even with the value of the snazzy Americorps education benefits factored in. I'm signing on for this out of a desire to help others, not get rich.
Still, it's good to know I'll have enough to live somewhat comfortably. The salary range for first year teachers in the Delta that TFA quotes is $27,000 to $35,000, but they also tout the opportunity to save money for the future as an advantage of teaching in their rural placement regions. Cheap housing makes a huge difference, and I expect that at the least I'll be able to budget for funding a Roth.
The difference between making $27,000 and $35,000 seems pretty significant. That might be related to differences in the cost of living in different communities, or it might just be differences in school funding. Since I'll get matched with a district rather than interviewing, I won't be able to take salary into consideration.
Honestly, I'm more worried about lifestyle inflation. Even though the pay won't be fabulous, it's still substantially more than the typical grad student stipend. I'm going to try to create a tight budget, sock away as much as possible, and develop spending habits that will be sustainable if/when I return to school.
Still, it's good to know I'll have enough to live somewhat comfortably. The salary range for first year teachers in the Delta that TFA quotes is $27,000 to $35,000, but they also tout the opportunity to save money for the future as an advantage of teaching in their rural placement regions. Cheap housing makes a huge difference, and I expect that at the least I'll be able to budget for funding a Roth.
The difference between making $27,000 and $35,000 seems pretty significant. That might be related to differences in the cost of living in different communities, or it might just be differences in school funding. Since I'll get matched with a district rather than interviewing, I won't be able to take salary into consideration.
Honestly, I'm more worried about lifestyle inflation. Even though the pay won't be fabulous, it's still substantially more than the typical grad student stipend. I'm going to try to create a tight budget, sock away as much as possible, and develop spending habits that will be sustainable if/when I return to school.
Monday, March 10, 2008
TFA Start-Up Costs (oof)
I've been trying to compile a list of the expenses I'll face to get started in teaching. It isn't going to be cheap, but Teach for America does offer grants and interest free loans to those who need the help. The costs I know about so far are:
Graduate tuition: $900 for the classes at the summer institute, where I'll teach summer school as well as learn about teaching.
Praxis tests: I hope $0. If get these all out of the way this semester, my scholarship will pay.
Travel to and from Houston for the summer institute and to the Delta: ? This pretty much depends on gas prices.
Housing and food while at the summer institute: Well, this should be $0 since a dorm room and a meal plan are provided, but I'd imagine eating out will be an important activity for getting to know everybody.
Apparel: While teaching summer school during the institute, there's a fairly strict dress code. Guys are expected to wear ties every day. I think I have enough clothing that should work, but I'll probably need a new pair of shoes, something dressy enough to wear with skirts, but comfortable enough for a job that involves standing and walking all day. Maybe $50 so I can prioritize quality over price?
Deposit and first month's rent: probably less than $500 total (?) since almost all corps member in the region have roommates, and housing prices are still quite reasonable in the Delta.
Graduate tuition for optional masters in education: possibly covered by an assistantship. I'll learn more about my options this summer.
Classroom materials: ? I have no idea what will be available or what I'll need.
Am I missing anything major?
Graduate tuition: $900 for the classes at the summer institute, where I'll teach summer school as well as learn about teaching.
Praxis tests: I hope $0. If get these all out of the way this semester, my scholarship will pay.
Travel to and from Houston for the summer institute and to the Delta: ? This pretty much depends on gas prices.
Housing and food while at the summer institute: Well, this should be $0 since a dorm room and a meal plan are provided, but I'd imagine eating out will be an important activity for getting to know everybody.
Apparel: While teaching summer school during the institute, there's a fairly strict dress code. Guys are expected to wear ties every day. I think I have enough clothing that should work, but I'll probably need a new pair of shoes, something dressy enough to wear with skirts, but comfortable enough for a job that involves standing and walking all day. Maybe $50 so I can prioritize quality over price?
Deposit and first month's rent: probably less than $500 total (?) since almost all corps member in the region have roommates, and housing prices are still quite reasonable in the Delta.
Graduate tuition for optional masters in education: possibly covered by an assistantship. I'll learn more about my options this summer.
Classroom materials: ? I have no idea what will be available or what I'll need.
Am I missing anything major?
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
How do I politely decline the offer from my back-up?
Today's mail brought the acceptance letter from my university's masters program in teaching so I now have two perfectly good options for getting into teaching. I decided long ago that if I got into both, I'd opt for Teach for America. It's a better fit for many reasons. TFA offers the opportunity to dive in and begin trying to make real change right away. The support system for beginning teachers sounds great, and the program is designed to facilitate a smooth transition to graduate school if I eventually choose to get a Ph.D. in physics. That's important because, although I am certain any career path I might choose will involve some teaching, I'm not yet sure I want to teach secondary school forever. Part of my heart still belongs to research.
I'm not sure how to tell the director of the teaching program at my school that I won't be participating. Most of the students who apply are very certain that it is what they want to do if admitted, and there doesn't seem to be any protocol for accepting or declining the offer. The director seems to operate on the assumption that if you jump through all of the hoops and get in, you'll enroll. He has also said some fairly disparaging things about alternative licensure programs.
This requires tact. I'm very grateful for the offer, and if things had gone differently, I think I would have been very happy in the masters program. Clearly, I don't want to burn any bridges. Should I send the director a letter or email, telephone him, or should I stop by his office? At some point I have to go pick up my portfolio. Any thoughts on how to handle this from you more experienced folk?
I'm not sure how to tell the director of the teaching program at my school that I won't be participating. Most of the students who apply are very certain that it is what they want to do if admitted, and there doesn't seem to be any protocol for accepting or declining the offer. The director seems to operate on the assumption that if you jump through all of the hoops and get in, you'll enroll. He has also said some fairly disparaging things about alternative licensure programs.
This requires tact. I'm very grateful for the offer, and if things had gone differently, I think I would have been very happy in the masters program. Clearly, I don't want to burn any bridges. Should I send the director a letter or email, telephone him, or should I stop by his office? At some point I have to go pick up my portfolio. Any thoughts on how to handle this from you more experienced folk?
Monday, March 3, 2008
The Official Word from Teach for America
"Congratulations! We are pleased to invite you to join the 2008 Teach For America corps and are excited to assign you to teach secondary physics (grades 6-12) in the Mississippi Delta."
There are a million things I could write about right now, about certification costs, teachers' salaries, career transitions, moving, life and finances in rural areas, issues of class and race. You'll be getting lots of those posts over the next few weeks and months, but tonight I'm just going to enjoy being excited and terrified.
There are a million things I could write about right now, about certification costs, teachers' salaries, career transitions, moving, life and finances in rural areas, issues of class and race. You'll be getting lots of those posts over the next few weeks and months, but tonight I'm just going to enjoy being excited and terrified.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Nerves
By this time tomorrow I should have my answer from Teach for America. For the past week or so, I've just wanted to get an answer, any answer, whatever they decide, and have either a really bad night or a really good night and then move on with planning for life after graduation. Now, I almost don't want to know.
I'm not sure which frightens me more, the possibility of rejection or of acceptance. I know that TFA is what I want to do, but I'm not so sure I'd be successful at fighting to end educational inequality. If I don't get in, then I have to hope that my back up plan was a good choice. In retrospect, I should have scheduled an earlier interview for the master's program so I could have an acceptance letter in hand before the TFA decision so I'd have the comfort of knowing that I was welcome somewhere. I don't think my university's program is likely to reject me, but I still have nagging irrational doubts.
My big goal for tomorrow is to get through the day without throwing up. Fortunately, I spent twelve hours in the lab yesterday so I should have plenty of mind-numbing data processing to keep me occupied.
I'm not sure which frightens me more, the possibility of rejection or of acceptance. I know that TFA is what I want to do, but I'm not so sure I'd be successful at fighting to end educational inequality. If I don't get in, then I have to hope that my back up plan was a good choice. In retrospect, I should have scheduled an earlier interview for the master's program so I could have an acceptance letter in hand before the TFA decision so I'd have the comfort of knowing that I was welcome somewhere. I don't think my university's program is likely to reject me, but I still have nagging irrational doubts.
My big goal for tomorrow is to get through the day without throwing up. Fortunately, I spent twelve hours in the lab yesterday so I should have plenty of mind-numbing data processing to keep me occupied.
On Purpose
My impending graduation and the process of interviewing with TFA and the master's program have forced me to reflect on what I'm doing with my life. I'd like to think I gave good answers to those sorts of questions in the interviews, but in reality I'm not so sure where I'm headed. I've found a few things I'm rather good at doing, at least a couple of which are of benefit to others and could ultimately lead to jobs that pay enough to survive, but right now my sense of purpose in life is waning.
There are some people who find careers that are absolutely perfect fits, whose purpose in life matches up extremely well with what others will pay them to do. A couple of weeks ago my dad asked me if I had ever met Dr. Suchandsuch who used to be on the physics faculty at my school. I expressed a bit of amusement at the idea that I could have somehow escaped meeting him; even though he retired in 1999, he still comes in to work five days a week so I see him in the hallways and at department events all the time. This guy enjoyed his job so much that his dream retirement consists of doing most of the same things he did while he was working for pay, minus some of the duller administrative aspects and department politics.
Many people find themselves in careers that they aren't so passionate about but still take some satisfaction in. I think my father falls into this category. He's a mechanical engineer and finds his job slightly boring. Engineering is still the best possible field for a car-obsessed math and science geek, and he's found a low-stress job he's good at that leaves him plenty of time to read and pursue other interests (mathematics, philosophy, and history, lately with a focus on Mediaeval Europe, in addition to all things automotive) during the hours he isn't at work.
Then there are those who are almost completely adrift, like my brother. He's a sophomore who hates college. He has no idea what he wants to do with his life, and after over a year and a half as an undeclared major who has been taking physics, programming, and math classes, the only thing he's sure of is that he doesn't want to do physics or programming and couldn't make a career of math. He is very bright, but is perpetually in danger of losing his scholarship because he doesn't keep up with the work and doesn't see the point of doing so if it isn't leading to anything anyway. My parents are encouraging him to defer his scholarship for a year, find some menial job, live at home and pay rent, and, they hope, discover some motivation to finish school, if only to escape the menial jobs.
I've watched people I care about hit that problem where they don't see where they could possibly be going in life, and I've experienced it myself. It's still a struggle to accept not having a long-term plan and press on anyway. I have to keep trying to find productive things to do in the meantime and hope that I'll eventually find a niche in the world.
There are some people who find careers that are absolutely perfect fits, whose purpose in life matches up extremely well with what others will pay them to do. A couple of weeks ago my dad asked me if I had ever met Dr. Suchandsuch who used to be on the physics faculty at my school. I expressed a bit of amusement at the idea that I could have somehow escaped meeting him; even though he retired in 1999, he still comes in to work five days a week so I see him in the hallways and at department events all the time. This guy enjoyed his job so much that his dream retirement consists of doing most of the same things he did while he was working for pay, minus some of the duller administrative aspects and department politics.
Many people find themselves in careers that they aren't so passionate about but still take some satisfaction in. I think my father falls into this category. He's a mechanical engineer and finds his job slightly boring. Engineering is still the best possible field for a car-obsessed math and science geek, and he's found a low-stress job he's good at that leaves him plenty of time to read and pursue other interests (mathematics, philosophy, and history, lately with a focus on Mediaeval Europe, in addition to all things automotive) during the hours he isn't at work.
Then there are those who are almost completely adrift, like my brother. He's a sophomore who hates college. He has no idea what he wants to do with his life, and after over a year and a half as an undeclared major who has been taking physics, programming, and math classes, the only thing he's sure of is that he doesn't want to do physics or programming and couldn't make a career of math. He is very bright, but is perpetually in danger of losing his scholarship because he doesn't keep up with the work and doesn't see the point of doing so if it isn't leading to anything anyway. My parents are encouraging him to defer his scholarship for a year, find some menial job, live at home and pay rent, and, they hope, discover some motivation to finish school, if only to escape the menial jobs.
I've watched people I care about hit that problem where they don't see where they could possibly be going in life, and I've experienced it myself. It's still a struggle to accept not having a long-term plan and press on anyway. I have to keep trying to find productive things to do in the meantime and hope that I'll eventually find a niche in the world.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Money vs. Freedom
Thanks to all of you who took the time to share your experiences in thoughtful comments on my last post. I guess I should take a few minutes to clarify what it is I hope to be doing with my life. My ultimate goal is a Ph.D. in physics, but I'm not planning to enter graduate school in physics right away. I have a wonderful mentor who does physics education research and is highly involved in efforts to improve science education at both the secondary and university levels. She's been an inspiration and has also given me the opportunity to teach a lab section and discover just how much I enjoy working with students. (Yes, I did enjoy my class, despite the days when they made me want to bang my head against the wall.)
I'm not sure I want to spend the rest of my working life teaching introductory physics to unruly seventeen year olds, but it is something I want to try. Although it might be naive to think so, I hope that by teaching high school I might be able to reach a few kids who would otherwise go through life disinterested in science. If Teach for America accepts me, I'll spend two years teaching wherever they send me. If not, I'll most likely complete the master's program in teaching at my university before entering the classroom.
The out of pocket costs for tuition and fees should be under $3,000 thanks to a scholarship I have lined up. There are other options that might have covered the rest, but I have elected not to pursue them. There's a fabulous new scholarship program for science, math, and engineering majors who want to earn teaching degrees, but scholarship recipients must demonstrate financial need, which I do not have. I could take out student loans offered by my state and then have them forgiven in exchange for years of teaching, but I don't want to be tied to my home state for that long.
As I start my adult life, I want the freedom to start making big decisions for myself, including where to live and how to earn my bread. I'd like to be able to move across the country and start over in a new town or to get a job in a DoD school and teach in Europe or Japan; even if I don't end up doing any of those things, I want to know that I could. A big part of the reason I save money and avoid debt is to allow myself the luxury of more options in life.
I'm not sure I want to spend the rest of my working life teaching introductory physics to unruly seventeen year olds, but it is something I want to try. Although it might be naive to think so, I hope that by teaching high school I might be able to reach a few kids who would otherwise go through life disinterested in science. If Teach for America accepts me, I'll spend two years teaching wherever they send me. If not, I'll most likely complete the master's program in teaching at my university before entering the classroom.
The out of pocket costs for tuition and fees should be under $3,000 thanks to a scholarship I have lined up. There are other options that might have covered the rest, but I have elected not to pursue them. There's a fabulous new scholarship program for science, math, and engineering majors who want to earn teaching degrees, but scholarship recipients must demonstrate financial need, which I do not have. I could take out student loans offered by my state and then have them forgiven in exchange for years of teaching, but I don't want to be tied to my home state for that long.
As I start my adult life, I want the freedom to start making big decisions for myself, including where to live and how to earn my bread. I'd like to be able to move across the country and start over in a new town or to get a job in a DoD school and teach in Europe or Japan; even if I don't end up doing any of those things, I want to know that I could. A big part of the reason I save money and avoid debt is to allow myself the luxury of more options in life.
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