My final year of college I had a choice to finish like the majority - student teaching, teacher work sample, Praxis tests, and graduation - or I could do an internship. With an internship I would teach my final semester of school; skip student teaching (since I would already be teaching); finish college classes, my teacher work sample, and pass the Praxis test while teaching full-time; and graduate from college halfway through the elementary school year. I decided pretty quickly that an internship sounded too difficult so I would go the normal route, and do my student teaching.
A couple weeks after my decision my friend Chelci told me that they were doing teaching internship interviews in northern Utah. She told me I should apply. I laughed at her. If I didn't think I could handle doing an internship while being close to home, what made me think I could do it across the state from my family? The more I thought about it, the more I felt I should try, so I applied to intern up north. I figured my odds were pretty low since they had never selected anyone from my college before for this particular internship.
Much to my surprise, I received a phone call days later from a principal that was interested in interviewing me for an intern position. I didn't know what to do. It happened so fast. I agreed to a phone interview that would happen in a few more days. The next day I was telling one of my professors about the opportunity I had to interview for the internship. She wisely suggested that if there was any way that I could get up north and interview in person, that I should do it. It just turned out that my friend Chelci had a teaching interview up north the same day that the face-to-face intern interviews were happening. We ended up carpooling up north together for our interviews.
I still remember the shock on my dad's face when he asked why I was packing, and I explained to him about the interview. Days earlier I wasn't even considering an internship. I was a mess during the interview. I stumbled through the questions and tried to use as much "teacher lingo" as I could. I thought I had completely blew it. What were the odds that they would pick someone like me from a very small college when they could get any student they wanted from the bigger universities up north? Believe it or not, I received a phone call a few days later from a principal at a school in Spanish Fork offering me a job as a 4th grade intern at his elementary school. It was so surreal.
I was so nervous. I had next to no teaching experience on my own, and I was moving to an area where I knew no one. This would be my first time living away from home. What was I getting myself into? I'm not going to lie, it was a hard year. When I look back to any photos taken of me that year I had dark circles under my eyes, my hair was in desperate need of a haircut, and none of my clothes fit me from a dramatic weight-loss. I couldn't afford to go home and visit my family, and I'm pretty sure I was one step away from a complete nervous breakdown.
Although this internship taught me a lot, and opened up a lot of doors in my career for me, that isn't why I am glad I took the risk. I very much believe that if it weren't for that internship I wouldn't have moved to northern Utah, and if I wouldn't have moved up north I wouldn't have met the love of my life. It took me a couple of years to meet him, but Mister just lived up the street from me. Talk about a blessing in disguise.
No comments:
Post a Comment