Hey, you. Yeah, you. I want to tell you a story.

Don’t worry, it’s not a long one, although

it could be. For your sake, I’ll give you the ad-libbed version. Now, you might be thinking: What

kind of story could this possibly be? Well, you curious son of a gun, I’m glad you asked. It’s a

story of how I decided to become an English teacher. If that doesn’t sell you, there’s going to be

angst, drama, internal conflict, and a whole lot of anxiety in this story so, you might want to stick

around. Better yet, the story ends on a cliffhanger because I’m just at the very beginning of this

process, so I have no idea how this will end! With that in mind, I’ll tell you what I know so far…

To start, we’re going to take it back to senior year of high school. Pre-pandemic,

post-pandemic, it doesn’t matter. I had it in my mind that I was going to take the science route

when it came to my major. I was taking AP Biology (Hey, Mrs. Glosson!) and I was enjoying it.

But, it was hard, maybe a little too hard for me. I still passed the class somewhere in the B range,

but I passed the class thinking that this is what I wanted to do in college. I told myself that I was

going to be a biology major. Don’t ask me why I told myself that because that was a terrible idea.

It was such a terrible idea that I changed my mind. I said to myself, Self, you’re still going to

stick with the science route, but this time, you’re going to be a nurse. That wasn’t my worst idea,

but it wasn’t my best. I wanted to pick a career that centered on helping people. That’s what I

wanted to make of myself. Nursing is an extremely bizarre consideration, looking back on it. I’m

terrible at science and going to school to be a nurse takes forever! I still wanted to help people,

though. My heart was in the right place, but my head wasn’t. I still had no clue what I wanted to

do, and college was fast approaching.

Community college is a beautiful thing, people. That’s for many reasons. But, if you were

looking to make friends, a community college in 2020-21 might not have been for you. It was all

online my whole tenure there. However, with everything online, it gives you more time to think.
And, think I did. As a Freshman in college, I was still of the mind that I’d make a great nurse.

Mind you, I didn’t take any nursing courses. One of the other beautiful things about community

college is not having to declare your major right away. In other words, you can procrastinate. I

was just getting my feet wet in terms of college, so I put deciding my major on the backburner

for a while. Then, as Freshman year began to wrap up, it came off the backburner. Holy crap, I

have one more semester before I graduate. I don’t know what I’m majoring in, nor do I know

where I’m going, I thought. Congratulations, you have enough college credit to graduate a

semester early! Collect $1,500 on your next turn. It wasn’t nearly as exciting as getting a LIFE

tile. Rather it was excitement wrought with stress. I have less time to figure things out now.

That’s all I could think about. I spent many days and nights researching schools and majors

thinking, Is this the place for me, and would I be good at this? Not to mention, it was a hot topic

at the dinner table, too. Not knowing what I wanted to major in led to not knowing what classes

to take next semester, and oh man, registration was coming up!

It’s registration time. This was a game-changer for me. Around this time, I began to

wisen up. I had many conversations with my mom about what I was going to do. At this point, I

had it narrowed down to two options: firefighting or teaching (spoiler alert: I picked this one).

My community college had a fire protection program and an education program, so I had

options. Last semester, I registered for my first education course ever. My mom had told me that

if I didn’t like it, that was okay. It was just an introduction course, after all. Firefighting was still

on the table, however. I’ve always been an athlete. I’m a big, strong guy, so I was practically

made for firefighting, is what I told myself. I’d be helping people, that’s all that mattered. At one

point, once I determined that I was attending UIC, I even considered getting a regular English

degree. That was to have in my back pocket, while I went to the fire academy in Chicago. As you
can see, there were many possibilities. Reader, I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t love my

education class at first. The appeal wasn’t there for me yet. After having one of many post-dinner

kitchen conversations with my mother, my mindset changed. She told me to give myself more

credit academically. She told me that I was incredibly smart and talented and that I was a great

student. (none of which I had believed up to that point). In this instance, the lightbulb went off.

She’s right. I am smart, I am a good student, I told myself. We then went on to identify how well

I did in my high school English classes and how big a part reading and writing played in my life.

It was at this moment that I knew what I wanted to do. I realized that being a teacher was a way

to help someone. That’s it! I want to be a high school English teacher! I knew that was the

correct direction for me to take. After that, my enjoyment of my education class increased

exponentially. From that moment forward, I told my class, my friends, and all of my loved ones

that I was going to be a high school English teacher.

And now, we come to the end. Or, the beginning of the end, I suppose. That’s what I

know so far. I hope you were listening. If the drama didn’t hook you in, then you missed a pretty

interesting story. I hope you enjoyed that rollercoaster ride much more than I did. That was all in

the past, so I’ll give you a little update on the present. As my first semester away at UIC comes

to a close, I will have completed two more education classes. On top of that, I will have taken my

first class specifically about teaching English. I’m lying on my bed right now writing this short

story for that class’ final. Whoever reads this, I hope you enjoyed my story. I should say, my

story up to this point. Thank you for reading it. Now, onto what lies ahead…