Teach for America Seminar

Hello Everyone,

     Yesterday, I attended the Teach for America seminar. I found out that there are multiple organizations like this one; another being "Teaching Fellows". In my opinion, the best thing about this organization is that they serve the lower socioeconomic populations and help students obtain their degree. They showed us a quote that was an eye opener; "just eight percent of kids growing up in low income communities graduate college by age 24". There are many benefits to this program, but the one that was most applicable for me was that you will have two years of teaching experience along with your masters degree. 

     There are some important dates to remember for this program, for all of you who are interested. The application deadline is October 24th, phone interviews are in November, and the final interview is between December second and fifth. The key take aways from building a successful resume for this program are to highlight your academic achievement, work experience and leadership, and what you are proud of. It appears that the most important thing is that you are passionate, and can show that you have been in a leadership role. The leadership role does not have to be in teaching, it merely needs to be in something that you were successful in.

     The program starts during the summer, where you will obtain training and shadow an experienced teacher. You will have to be in the masters program full time and teach full-time, which can be difficult but you are in a class with your teaching peers. In addition, you do not have to take the GRE and your masters thesis is broken up over the course of the two years. Since they do not have the educational policy masters for the program, I am considering doing a concurrent masters in public policy and educational policy degree. However, I still think that this is an excellent program for any degree discipline.