Being told that I’m going to hate my life after becoming a teacher or that I’ll never be rich always makes me angry. There shouldn’t be a debate on which majors have it the worst or which ones don’t even matter. Every subject of study is important in their own ways.
When people ask why I want to be a teacher, they always ask it in a way where I feel like I should be embarrassed. Am I supposed to feel ashamed of my dream? I acknowledge that education isn’t for everyone but that doesn’t mean I should be told that I’m going to hate my life and be one of those teachers.
It takes passion to be a good teacher and I believe that have the passion. I also don’t have to be committed to being a high school history teacher. Having the education degree means I can move forward in my career, like getting a master’s in administration and becoming a superintendent. There’s so much that can be done with an education degree besides teaching. Someone who doesn’t know me telling me that I’m going to hate living my dream without even considering the possibilities I have in store makes me want to prove that I can succeed with “just an education degree.”
Another thing I am frustrated about is that a lot of my peers think my coursework is easy. It’s not. There are so many facets to learning about education. I must learn how to teach, such as writing tests and lesson plans, working with children with exceptionalities, mastering my content area, and the psychological development of children. My college work is just as difficult as other majors’, but for different reasons. I still have to study just as hard as a bio major would! The education program is competitive because there are standards outside the college that I have to live up to. I have to get licensed to teach and work hard to achieve that license.
There is great value in getting a good education from teachers who really care about their jobs. Experiencing the COVID lockdown in high school was definitely a reason why I want to be a high school teacher – I feel like I lost so much valuable instruction, and I can tell how the pandemic impacted my learning. With my education degree, I want to change my future students’ lives. My history teachers in high school were some of the most inspiring men and women I know.
My future is still unclear since I’m only a sophomore, but I know that I’ve made the right choice with what career path I want to follow. Who knows where my life will be in the next 10 years? All I know is that teaching classes about history, a topic I love, will be the most important thing to me.
Your career choice shouldn’t be dependent on what will make you the most money. Money doesn’t buy you happiness, what you do with your life will bring you happiness. I’ll still be rich with experience and the joy that educating people about my favorite things brings me even if I’m not making hundreds of thousands of dollars.
We should stop treating college as a competition. We should be supporting our peers’ dreams. My choice of being an education major is just as valid as someone else’s major, whatever that may be. I have so much respect for my friends that want to go into the medical or business or biology fields. It’s time that education gets that same respect.