Life After B.Ed

Once again, life has astounded me with how fast time is moving these days. I must admit that I took a substantial amount of time off over the break (aka pushed school to the back of my mind and hung out with my family.) While it was great for my sanity, and I don't regret it, coming back to Queens I feel like I've been busier than ever. There's the usual school work of course, which for some reason seems to be more considerable in this block, but then there's job fairs and seminars on how to write resumes, and interviews. I feel like the pressure to find a job and find it now is on. I almost wish I had a break from school stuff to figure out my career. But I know life doesn't work that way.

I't's also caused me to think a lot lately about what I want to do when I finish here in April (which by the way is only 3 months away, which is terrifying.) I think my main issue is deciding where I want to teach. I love Ontario, but I'm not super tied to it. I love BC. I love new experiences. Do I want to go abroad? The decision-making and contemplating my future feels too much like "adulthood." It's pretty overwhelming at the moment.

We had a discussion in class recently where we all shared what our plans were for after our time here at Queens. I was looking forward to this discussion, because I'm genuinely interested in what my classmates plans are (especially those who don't plan on teaching in a traditional classroom.) However, the conversation to me at times seemed to be pretty dismal. It seemed to me like several people were feeling pretty disheartened by the current job market for teachers. I understand it isn't great, but there ARE jobs out there. I took an extra year doing my undergrad at Trent, so all the people I was originally in Concurrent Ed with have graduated already and are out in the real world. I've kept in touch with many of them, and what most have told me is that it's not as bad as they thought it would be. I know so many of them have teaching jobs (even a few around here!) So despite all the negative things we hear about getting a teaching job, and how "we shouldn't expect one for the next 5 years," I remain optimistic. I like to think that as a bunch of people who majored in physics, we don't fear a bit of a challenge. I'm a firm believer that we grow a lot more when we are challenged than when things are easy. So bring it on real world.