After graduating from UMD, I married and moved to Athens, GA. Here, I’ve begun my career as a teacher by accepting a position as an 8th grade social studies teacher. The course I teach is centered around the state of Georgia in regards to its history, geography, economics, and government. Teaching this course has thrown me into the deep end of learning about and appreciating the new place I call home. While student teaching in my last semester at UMD, I was working primarily with 11th and 12th graders in a small, charter high school. Now, I work with 13 and 14 year olds at a middle school in one of the fastest growing school districts in the state of Georgia. This change has been a difficult adjustment, yet I feel that I landed in the perfect place for having moved across the country. In my first year, I received the honor of being named the teacher of the month for the month of February. Receiving this award affirmed that, regardless of how difficult my first year had been, I’m doing the thing I’m meant to be doing. I will be continuing to invest in my teaching practice this summer by pursuing a Masters in Education through the University of North Georgia. Alongside teaching, I coach middle school wrestling and baseball. Coaching has helped me really experience the joys of working with kids. During the wrestling season, I helped lead our team to a league championship title, as well as place third in state as a team for the middle school division. During baseball season, we saw similar successes by winning our conference championship. Though I’m in a new place and doing new things, I reflect fondly on my time in Duluth and at UMD.
My time in the history department at UMD has greatly prepared me for my career in education. Before coming to UMD, I had many conversations with my teachers about deciding to become a teacher. One of the best pieces of advice I received is that it's important to never stop being a student. I took this advice to heart by deciding to pursue a degree in history from the history department alongside my education degree. Doing so was one of the best decisions I made while at UMD. Continuing to take complex history classes that covered a variety of topics, geographic areas of the world, and periods of time has helped prepare me for a vast array of potential courses I could teach within social studies. Outside of content, my time with the history department also helped me become a stronger writer. In particular, written assessments that I completed in multiple courses for Dr. Gideon Mailer and Dr. Jeffrey Rop helped me expand my academic voice while simultaneously getting to the argumentative points of my theses. As a teacher, I continue to have a desire and drive to continue my own study and learning of history, whether it be for the courses I teach or for my own personal curiosities. The skills I learned and honed as a student in UMD’s history department have greatly helped me in the start of my career as a teacher.