Laurenxox1

I have been working as a substitute teacher in early childhood for a little over a year now. For a couple teachers, I am their preferred substitute and they exclusively use me when they are out. I also have been working at a KUMON math / reading center for a year and a half! I took a child nutrition course in college where I spent a semester as a preschool class room aide, and I also was a teacher's aide in high school for a year for a child development class. I'm only mentioning this since I do have a good amount of teaching experience! If it weren't for this experience it would have been much harder to make this transition. I also plan to work during grad school and sub / aide in whatever district I plan to slide into after graduation. I assume that this will help me when I do apply for a job, but I will also include everything else you mentioned. Thanks!

I wonder who I could even talk to about this. It would be nice to have some sort of advisement from someone within the field but I know pretty much no one since my undergraduate degree is in neuroscience!

Yes, my end goal is to teach k-2. It makes sense that prestige wouldn't matter much. However, i'm also afraid of job competition / job availability. At what cost though, you know? Is the job market so bad in this field that it's worth 20k in extra tuition? Ugh.

I have Umass Boston, BU, and Merrimack College. UMB / Merrimack are 10k less per year (for a 2 year program) than BU. I know that a better grad school equals a higher pay grade but is BU really worth it? Early childhood teachers don't make a whole lot of money to begin with so tacking on another 20k in student loans would be a nightmare if it didn't help me to secure a job or bump up my pay scale a decent amount. I can't find any definitive information on whether or not this truly matters in early childhood ed. I also don't know much about Merrimack College in general since i'm not from the area so if anyone knows anything about whether that is considered above / below Umass Boston that would be great.