Even after I declared my major as Linguistics & Spanish, I still wasn’t very sure where I wanted to go with that. If you find yourself with this similar struggle, even just as a Spanish major alone, I would suggest exploring the possibility of teaching. In my junior year I found out of the STEP program here at UMass that offers you the chance to get your licensure to teach Spanish in grade levels 5-12, in this case Spanish but I do know that the School of education has many other programs for several different interests. I found out about this program and decided to look more into it as a possibility; I never really thought about teaching before but thought it wouldn’t hurt to check it out since I had no idea in what direction I was going with my major at hand.

After learning more about the program and taking classes on teaching methods in both English and Spanish, I found myself really liking the idea of teaching and what I could do to better the system in any way possible. Through this experience I have reflected on times when I was underserved as a student or a teacher was under appreciated or underserved for all that they do to help make the best learning environment for students. Kids spend so much of their lives as students and going through some of their most important and life changing moments of their lives, that no matter what subject you teach or what position you hold in a school or the education system there are important ways to handle working with kids and what they need or should learn beyond the textbooks and testing materials that have become such a big part of education. I think my strong views on this and desire to help change and be of use to the future adults in the making was what really encouraged me to pursue this path, but I definitely recommend it as an option for those who aren’t sure what they might want to look into doing after graduating with a major in Spanish.