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I'm now around 5 years into my career as a software engineer. What I would really like to do, though, is to teach, especially in a way that let's me make use of at least some of the knowledge I've acquired up to this point. Teaching High School Science or Math would be wonderful, but Middle School or even Elementary school would still be great. I resisted the urge throughout college because it was drilled into me that I needed to pursue a career where I could be "successful" and make lots of money, but I've come to realize I just don't care. Interacting with young people, teaching them in the few opportunities I've had to do so, tutoring, these are the things that have consistently made me feel the best about myself. It's not always enjoyable, exactly (far from it, and I know like most jobs I can expect teaching to be a lot of drudgery), but it feels like I'm making the world a better place in some small way. I want to be the people I grew up admiring, and help make the people I grew up hating less common in comparison. So I've got the teaching idealism bug, I guess. Unfortunately, I still have over 40k in student debt left to pay off, and I have a child on the way. Quitting my job and going back to school for years isn't doable - I'm already paying $500 a month paying off my current debt, I have rent to pay and a wife and child to support. I think I can manage that on a teaching salary, honestly, even as crappy as the starting salary is, it's the bit leading up to getting that crappy starting salary I don't think I can manage. I know Teach For America specializes in not paying people what they are worth and not giving them the tools they need to succeed and crushing teaching idealism, so that's honestly not an option. I have an BS in Computer Science, so it might be possible with some effort to save up money for maybe a year or two of school in a couple more years, or to do night school or something (I haven't been able to find any night school teaching programs though?), but that doesn't seem like it would be enough. I'm currently in Boston. I don't even know where to start (though I've certainly looked, and know what I would have done had the move to Seattle not ended up going up in flames). I feel trapped in a career I hate and with no way to get into the field I think I'd excel in. What should I do to begin making this transition? How long will it take? If I do go back to school, what I should I go for - can I try for a Masters of Education despite my BS being in a different field? (I really don't know how this stuff works) Should I be doing more tutoring/reading now, in preparation, or something else? Does anyone else have stories of having done the same thing or something similar they can share for inspiration and guidance? I understand that with my financial constraints, this will take time. But is making the switch even realistically possible? All the teachers I know either switched a long time ago when it was much easier or entered the profession straight our of college and are currently busy drowning in debt. (Edit: Didn't realize there was a teaching megathread in the Science/Academics/Language subforum, so feel free to ignore this if you think it might be better off there.) GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Sep 4, 2014 |
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Sep 4, 2014 18:21
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