With the school year coming to an end, seniors are on a time crunch to decide their schools and majors. Some of these students are planning to pursue careers in education.

Teachers from BV presented their advice for these students in their college experience and afterwards.

Theresa Middleton, ELA

“I encourage them to stick it out past the first year — that first year is really hard. I’ve tried other jobs, I’ve done other things, and this is the most rewarding career of all. Getting past the difficulty of the first year and trying to navigate through creating assignments and tests and learning the ropes of a new building and all the things — if you can get through that, it gets so much easier and you get to enjoy the rewards. Focus on building relationships and talking to students because when you think back on your education, you don’t remember the grammar you learned in your freshman English class. You remember the teacher you had and how she or he made you feel. That’s the only career that you’ll go into where you get remembered for what you do. I still think about my kindergarten teacher. You get to live on in other people’s memories.”

Amy Harmon, Gifted

“Try to find opportunities where you can work with kids. If that’s like a camp counselor or volunteering at school — making sure that that’s the profession that you want to go into. You do it for the love of kids.”

Courtney Buffington, Psychology

“Don’t go into teaching because you love the subject matter. You have to go into teaching because you love working with kids. If you don’t build a relationship with those kids, it doesn’t matter what you know or how smart you are — they don’t care.”

Paul Bessetti, Band

“Like having a kid, it has to be something you really want to do down to the core of your soul, so really think long and hard before you choose this profession.”

Kristen Chavez-Linck, Math

“You have to be flexible. You have to understand that everything is constantly changing. You also have to be prepared to work really, really hard because the demands put on teachers now are way different than they used to be. Your job is actually not technically teaching anymore. It’s a piece of it, [but there is] a whole other aspect to the job that you have to be prepared for.”