copillia

Lots of stuff has been going on.

For about a week I was positive I wanted to change my major. See, for the past year I have been at DePaul studying Secondary English Education. I want to become a high school English teacher, and I am hoping that when I actually DO it, it will be a satisfying career. However, this quarter I took a magazine writing class for one of my English credits and HOLY WOW! From the moment I walked into that class I was more inspired, motivated and excited than I had been in a long time. Im not sure how many of you know this, but Ive been doing a zine called Indigo since about 95. Ive never taken any kind of creative writing or journalism classes this is my first one. So needless to say Im all geeked about this. One of the expectations of this class is to publish the three articles that we write, so Im excited about that, too.

So Im sitting there on the first day of class thinking What the hell am I doing in education? I have been going through this program with the ideano, with the HOPE that teaching will be for me. But I already know I love to write and Ive been publishing on my own for ten years now. Originally I chose teaching over something more artsy because it seemed a more practical, stable way to put my love of literature and writing to good use. But lately Ive been getting visions of standing in front of a bunch of little brats teaching boring novels that I dont care about, dealing with administrative and political bullshit, and basically forfeiting my own projects and because I spend every waking moment thinking about teaching.

I shared some of these premonitions with my sister (shes 23 and recently got a job teaching History at Hyde Park Academy) and she said that teaching is not as bad as they make it out to be in school. Actually, she said that she sometimes thinks its the easiest job in the world. Every day she learns a way to make her job better and/or easier. I was surprised to hear this because in my classes it seems that all I hear is Your first year is going to be hell. Youre going to work 80 hour weeks. No one is going to appreciate anything you do. Youll just have to do everything by trial and error. I guess the trial and error part is true, but I wonder about the rest.

I was considering dropping the education class Im taking, but I decided to finish out the quarter and think this over. I dont even know what I would change my major to at this point. Creative writing? Communications? Then theres a part of me that says Youre halfway through the program. Youve done all this work. At least get your BA and take it from there. Obviously Im confused. I had this problem before I started at DePaul and I thought I had it figured out. I am not ready to give up on Education, but I have some things to consider.

Any thoughts?