Teaching Programs Attract Students Looking For Jobs

Whether caught in the frenzy of on-campus recruiting or the whirlwind of graduate school and fellowship deadlines, many seniors this fall are beginning to feel the pressures of planning life after graduation and making career choices. According to the Office of Career Services, the most popular employment sector for students entering the workforce following graduation is financial services—over 20 percent of seniors accept jobs in finance.

Perhaps surprisingly, the second most popular sector is education, at 16 percent, according to the most recent data from OCS. But as programs in education, such as Teach for America and the College’s own Undergraduate Teacher Education Program­ (UTEP), gain popularity on campus, seniors who choose teaching—and in particular teaching in Cambridge and Boston area schools—are not as few and far between.

THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED

Native Bostonian Emily L. Melton ’09 jumped straight into the teaching world after graduation. Melton, now teaching history at the Jeremiah E. Burke High School in Dorchester, said she had always known she wanted to pursue a career in teaching.

Melton’s placement in a Boston-area school is part of the Boston Residency Program (BTR), a post-graduate program that enrolls students in an accelerated one-year masters program and a year of co-teaching, in addition to a three-year commitment to teaching within the Boston public school system.

Melton said that as an undergraduate, she sometimes felt “discouraged” from pursuing this interest at Harvard.

“I felt that there was a lack of civil duty; you don’t find a lot of people that go into public service,” she said.

Pia P. Dandiya ’09, a teacher at Garfield Middle School Revere as part of Teach For America’s Boston corps, said that choosing a more common path in finance was tempting.

“I think that there is an imbalance of Harvard students going into jobs that pay well, rather than going into jobs that serve less fortunate communities,” she said.

Dandiya said that though she had always been considering finance and consulting careers, she was more and more enticed by TFA’s mission.

“By the end of my junior year, I was trying to be interested in finance and consulting, but the more I found out about Teach for America, the more I was wrapped,” she said.

For Melton, public service felt like both a privilege and an obligation.

“I believe it is important for those who have had the good fortune of an excellent education to give back to society,” she said.

TEACHING THE TEACHERS

Teaching and teacher training programs such as BTR have in recent years risen in popularity among undergraduates in part due to extensive recruiting among students with an interest in public service.

According to Carolyn Chen, a recruiter for BTR, the program recruits primarily from specific organizations such as the Philips Brooks House Association, in order to encourage students who have already shown dedication to public service to pursue careers in urban teaching. Chen said she hopes recruiting at Harvard will expand.

“We’re still building a community at Harvard,” she said.

Other organizations, namely the national non-profit teacher-placement program TFA, have already built solid platforms to recruit widely on Harvard’s campus. TFA, for instance, has begun to align its recruitment with the corporate recruiting schedule.

Students accepted to TFA commit to a two-year teaching post in lower-income American communities. TFA’s arrival in Boston in 2009 initially sparked anger among the Boston Teachers Union, which argued that TFA corps members were replacing laid-off teachers. Nevertheless, Harvard seniors seem to be flocking to TFA: 293 seniors from the class of 2010 applied to the program.

Anasstassia Baichorova, a TFA recruiter for Harvard and Brown and a 2006 corps member in New York City, said that its teachers are “providing critical leadership...to ensure all children have the opportunity to attain an excellent education.”

Growing encouragement from the College itself is also allowing students to take up the teaching challenge earlier.

Harvard’s UTEP, through which undergraduates can become certified teachers, requires enrolled students to engage in intensive teaching practice while taking foundational pedagogy courses. The program can be concurrent with an undergraduate degree or the student teaching can be completed during a semester after graduation.

“The main commitment of the program is to prepare passionate and highly trained students to education,” UTEP Director Megin H. Charner-Laird said.

While only eight students were enrolled in the program when she assumed directorship three years ago, UTEP enrollment has risen over the years. Currently, 22 UTEP students are student teaching in schools, while another 10 have yet to be placed in the field.

“Students come from all different areas of the college…[but] we get more folks interested in Social Studies, Government, History,” Charner-Laird said. “[UTEP is] a really exciting opportunity for undergraduates that they cannot find in their coursework.”

EDUCATION FOR THE NEXT GENERATION

A common criticism of the relatively short two-year contracts of programs like TFA is that it still leads to a shortage of long-term teachers. But some TFA teachers are finding permanent niches in the world of education.

Hana C. Merkle ’08, who herself attended a Boston public school, first served as a San Francisco Bay Area corps member and is now the Program Director for TFA’s Greater Boston corps. She serves as an instructional coach for other TFA corps members.

“I was eager to have the opportunity beyond my 137 sixth graders and work with other teachers who have incredible skills as teachers and as explorers,” Merkle said.

“My experience in the classroom really confirmed for me my interest and my passion for working in education and for working with students,” she added.

Teachers like Dandiya agreed that her job was lucrative in ways other than salary.

“It was the most challenging experience of my life. I learned so much. I see how differently I can do things,” she said.

For Melton, inspiring not just her students, but also a next generation of teachers, motivates her to remain working in education.

“My sense of civic duty stems from an amazing high school history teacher I had,” she said. “[The teacher] helped me define what I believe is an American, and that has led me to become a public school teacher.”

—Staff writer Rediet T. Abebe can be reached at rtesfaye@college.harvard.edu. —Staff writer Linda Zhang can be reached at zhang53@fas.harvard.edu.