In a bit of a crisis.

[NataMarkovski]

Hello everyone,

I'm a first semester grad student in a Secondary Education program. It has been about a month and a half, and despite my original excitement and idealism about grad school, this program, this school, and teaching, I feel extremely confused and disappointed. My school is incredibly expensive, and so the fact that I'm unhappy also brings a huge amount of financial pressure to the situation. I decided to do a special program that integrates the arts into traditional curriculum, which is why I am spending the money. Unfortunately, it has not matched up to my expectations. I feel isolated in my program, insignificant, inadequate and uninterested. From the teaching experience/ observation experience I've had so far, I've gotten a huge reality check about what it means to be a teacher and I am feeling a bit terrified and unsure if this if for me. I thought that because I loved my subjects, loved learning, wanted to help people and believed in education from a social justice perspective that this would be right for me. I am starting to think that I might be better with kids on an individual level. I'm thinking about looking into counseling or even guidance counseling.

Additionally, I've been experiencing a massive amount of anxiety and depression over this. I dread going to class, and have panic attacks when I think about it. In my mind, I want to take a break to sort myself out. My counselor said I could take a leave of absence, but will that kill my chances of getting into grad school again? Should I push myself to finish the semester, or will the risk of bad grades due to my anxiety do more harm than simply taking time out? Should I try to just withdraw from one class to make things more manageable or will the "W" also destroy my chances for a future in grad school? I also receive financial aid, so that complicates things too.

Any advice regarding these issues would be greatly appreciated. I feel lost, confused, and stuck in the bureaucracy.

Thanks.

[Usmivka]

I can't speak to educator education, so I'll leave that to others. In my field, a leave of absence would not be frowned on or impact chances of admissions elsewhere. Neither would one (or multiple) withdrawals. If you've already paid for the semester, it seems worth sticking it out the remaining 6-8 weeks.

[sociologyplease]

I have a couple of thoughts. First, you feeling inadequate, isolated, and disappointed is a fairly common response amongst first semester/first year graduate students. It's a hard transition, and it can feel isolating. Especially in professional programs like teaching, where you have a very certain idea about what the profession looks like, which is often almost completely wrong! Not to mention, professional programs require a lot of pretty boring, jump-through-the-hoops kind of classes. Ask some people in your program- I best they feel similar to you and are questioning if this whole teaching thing is really for them.

However, that doesn't mean that's the only thing that is going on here, or that those feelings will decline with time. I've been through something similar- I'm in a Ph.D program. in sociology now, but started out in counseling (coming right out of undergrad) about three years ago. I thought I would love counseling and I was super excited about my program, but within the first few months I realized that counseling was not for me. I gave it some time at first, because I really loved the theory of counseling, I was doing well in the program overall, and there were a lot of great things about my program (I got to do the research I wanted to do, for example), but as soon as I would put into a clinical internship,I panicked and made the decision to switch to a non-clinical master's program that my grad school offered. This ended up being a lot better for me, and given everything I know now, I would have skipped the whole degree completely, or at least switched programs a lot sooner.

So although I want to emphasize how normal your feelings are a month and a half into your program, I also don't want you to ignore your instincts. I did, and it cost me a fair bit of money and some time that I could of spent in the field that I actually like. Now some schools with a education program also offer a degree in guidance counseling- does your school? If so, you could go talk to their admissions committee and see if it sounds like something you are interested in. I would also try to stick the semester out, and take a leave of absence after that.

Edited October 16, 2012 by sociologyplease

[stell4]

I first went into secondary education, somewhat on a whim. I definitely had very different ideas as to what I thought teaching was going to be like and what it actually ended up being. I never finished the program (the school went bankrupt 2 courses short of my masters!), but gained the necessary teaching certificate and taught for 4 years at the high school level. I found that in many ways, teaching is not about all those great things I had imagined it to be: loving my subject, working with students, social justice aspects.... I found so much of my time was spent on acquiring supplies ( I taught chem with no lab, no supplies!), paperwork, "helicopter parents", parents who couldn't care less, administration, huge achievement gaps and little help for students to overcome, teaching to standardized tests... there are still plenty of great thing about it, otherwise I would have never lasted those 4 years. I guess my 2 cents would be that if you're not still excited about teaching after getting a glimpse at its not so glamorous side, then it will likely only get worse for you. The teachers that I knew who were great teachers and in it for 5+ years are EXTREMELY passionate about what they do. I think your reasoning for going into something else aside from teaching is sound and that an admissions committee could see this as a learning/growth experience for you with explanation in your SOP. Also, I think that the teaching experience differs significantly from state to state, so my experiences may not necessarily translate.Good luck on whatever you decide.

[mandarin.orange]

I found so much of my time was spent on acquiring supplies ( I taught chem with no lab, no supplies!), paperwork, "helicopter parents", parents who couldn't care less, administration, huge achievement gaps and little help for students to overcome, teaching to standardized tests...

I too found that teaching high school science was less about super cool lessons and labs, and really more about how to manage 120+ people, manage frustrations with broken technology, and staying on top of a vast amount of paperwork: grading, supply orders, Learning Support documentation, grading, reimbursement forms, the Inbox, grading, documenting parent contact, recommendations, documenting proof of my continuing ed and required workshops to admin...