It was a rainy summer on the Pennsylvania game lands. I was part of the field crew for a Penn State doctoral student studying strip mining and its impact on grassland birds. One July afternoon, an unsuspecting email awaited me when I returned from a day of sparrow banding. It was a former professor of mine, my undergrad advisor. Her email was urgent. The Bio Department’s first-year lab instructor was pregnant. Could I interview as a temporary replacement? Could I interview next week?
At this point in my career, I was only two years out of college. I had a BA and roughly a year of biological field experience under my belt. A field technician’s hourly wage can’t pay back those student loans, however, so I was also working as a professional tutor. I still didn’t know how I wanted to spend my life. My primary plan of action went something like this: get into grad school, get a PhD in ornithology or animal behavior, and then . . . ? At least, I thought, if I got the temporary lab instructor job, I could put a dent in those loans in the mean time.
If you had asked me on that rainy day, as I sat in battered field housing staring at an email, whether I might fancy myself a teaching career, I would have answered, no. I felt under-qualified for the instructor position, yet they hired me. I fully expected that come December, I would set out on the job market once again.
At this point in my career, I was only two years out of college. I had a BA and roughly a year of biological field experience under my belt. A field technician’s hourly wage can’t pay back those student loans, however, so I was also working as a professional tutor. I still didn’t know how I wanted to spend my life. My primary plan of action went something like this: get into grad school, get a PhD in ornithology or animal behavior, and then . . . ? At least, I thought, if I got the temporary lab instructor job, I could put a dent in those loans in the mean time.
If you had asked me on that rainy day, as I sat in battered field housing staring at an email, whether I might fancy myself a teaching career, I would have answered, no. I felt under-qualified for the instructor position, yet they hired me. I fully expected that come December, I would set out on the job market once again.
It was blazing hot in New Jersey, this August. The temperature had reached into the low 90s, when I walked into the first-year lab at Drew University on the 30th. Twenty-two students, the first of four lab sections, listened as I introduced the lab component for Bio 150: Ecology and Evolution. Today, I told my students, we would brave the heat, the mosquitos and the ticks, the poison-ivy, and we would tour the Drew Forest Preserve. Outside we went, water bottles in hand, to meet the Eastern Deciduous Forest. August 30th marked the beginning of my seventh year as a lab instructor at Drew.
My position isn’t temporary any longer. My predecessor moved with her family years ago. Today, I am the first-year lab instructor for Drew's Bio Department. It’s a non-tenure track position. I have to put my all into the job if I want to keep it. So, that’s what I’ve done, because I discovered somewhere along the way, caught up in that nerve-wracking first semester, that I truly loved teaching. And that true love led me through the MAED program at MSU and into this Capstone course.
My position isn’t temporary any longer. My predecessor moved with her family years ago. Today, I am the first-year lab instructor for Drew's Bio Department. It’s a non-tenure track position. I have to put my all into the job if I want to keep it. So, that’s what I’ve done, because I discovered somewhere along the way, caught up in that nerve-wracking first semester, that I truly loved teaching. And that true love led me through the MAED program at MSU and into this Capstone course.
For the foreseeable future, I will stay at Drew. I will take first-year students out to meet the Eastern Deciduous Forest, and I’ll do it with a smile on my face. Will I stay at Drew for the duration of my working life? I can’t say. Will I ever again tromp through waist-high grass in the pouring rain in search of sparrows, or don a Bug Shirt and take blood samples from sandpipers out of a jeep at midnight? I really hope so. Will I ever embark on that doctoral journey into bird research? Perhaps. There’s still a lot of uncertainty in my future. There is one road, however, that I will travel, no matter what detours and roadside attractions I encounter. Which road, you ask? To answer that, you’ll have to ask me a question first: Do you fancy yourself a teacher?
Yes.
(Photo credit: David Miyamoto, 2012)
Yes.
(Photo credit: David Miyamoto, 2012)