It’s a new year and time to reevaluate some of my professional goals. A few years back I made a decision to leave a high stress job at a local charter school into a muchmore fluid position in a local adult education program. The program consisted of working with out-of-school youth toward achieving their high school equivalency. It was a great job, but there were a fewfatal flaws that made it next to impossible to continue as a career:
- It was a part-time temporaryposition, where benefits were limited and upward mobility not possible
- It was not counting as credit towards a professional certificate (at least as I wastold at the time)
- It did not make enough money
I’d be lying if it said it wasn’t great at the time. It allowed me to get out of a high-stress situation and work a part-time job at a time where we just had our second child. It was a great transition. During this time, I started a new education program at UB in Educational Psychology. I was looking to learn more about education and earn a higher-level degree to open more doors. The program was great and I did well in it, but in the program I started learning about mental health counseling, something I wasn’t aware of. I was hoping to continue working part-time while switching to a mental health counseling program. In the end I imagined a part-time teaching career combined with a full- or part-time counseling position. I took a few courses in counseling and thought I was on the right track, until…
Late summer of 2019, on a whim, I applied to Buffalo Public Schools as a special education teacher. I received a call from the special education department the next day and the McKinley High School two days later. It was a quick process, and I was hired on the spot by them principal Dr. Marck Abraham. From there, everything spiraled into control. I was re-starting a career in science education in a new school and a new subject–environmental science. There were definitely a few hiccups along the way: not having a co-teacher for an entire quarter, the whole pandemic thing, and “challenging” students. When I started at MHS, I immediately took a leave of absence from the UB counseling program. I didn’t know what the plan was, but I knew that I couldn’t take the courses that I needed to take while starting a new job.
Now, here we are. It’s a year and a half later and we’re still in the pandemic and I’m still teaching at MHS, albeit from home. I’m having an itch to get back to school, but we’re expecting our third child in March. I did a bit of self-evaluation and decided I needed a few things in an education program. First, it has to be doctoral level. Second, it has to be valuable to me as a teacher. I thought about a program in teacher leadership, but I don’t see myself as a principal or assistant principal any time in the near future. What I did see myself as is some kind of a coach–technology coach perhaps? This led me to a 100% online program at the University at Albany in Curriculum and Instruction.
I decided that I can’t just leave UB after these past few years with nothing. Lucking my advisor is a great advisor and pointed me towards a special degree and certificate option that would both allow be to graduate with a master’s AND get a certificate in rehabilitation counseling where I could pursue a career as a CRC in the future. So if everything goes as planned, I’ll be taking one more class at UB this semester and graduating with another master’s in June.
As far as new education programs go, I’m in the process of applying to the University at Albany for the PhD in Curriculum and Instruction. In the meantime, I’ll be taking one or two or three or four courses and a non-matriculated student testing out the waters and living life with a new baby.
Considering how “divergent” my education career has been in the past 13 years or so, I decided to jot down the path on where I started and where I ended up:
2008 PhD in Chemistry at University at Buffalo2010 MAT in Chemistry at Empire State College2010 PhD in Chemistry at University at Buffalo2013 MAT in Chemistry at Empire State College- 2014 MSEd in Students with Disabilities at Medaille College
2017 PhD in Educational Psychology at University at Buffalo2018 MS in Mental Health Counseling at University at Buffalo2018 AC in Rehabilitation Counseling at University at Buffalo2018 MS in Rehabilitation Counseling at University at Buffalo- 2021 EdM in Educational Studies at University at Buffalo
- 2021 AC in Rehabilitation Counseling at University at Buffalo
- Curriculum and Instruction at University at Albany?
