A Day in the Life of…. an English Education Major
~From English Department Communications Intern Kaitlyn Phillips
This post will follow English Ed. student Colton Mhyre as he tackles a full day of class, teacher observation, and even taking on the role of mentor in CSU’s Campus Connections (previously Campus Corps).
His day begins early, and he hits the ground writing (so to speak) in his CO301D course: Writing in the disciplines, Education, taught by Cindy O’Donnell Allen. This class operates most often as a workshop, where students are free to work on their individual assignments and blog about their successes and failures and musings on what it’s like to write about education; Colton’s blog can be found here: https://stalwartramblings.wordpress.com/.
Next comes a staple in every English Ed. major’s day: a coffee break. His drink of choice? A vanilla latte from Morgan’s Grind! It’s a good thing that’s got an extra shot of espresso in it, because he might need it for his next class: observing a classroom on-sight at Loveland’s Conrad Ball Middle School!
Here, Colton find’s himself in Ms. Clark’s 6th grade English class, where he observes students taking district post-assessments on argumentative writing. He loves interacting with the students, and gaining knowledge from experienced teachers in amazing classrooms.
He does have some reservations, however. “In this course, we have to write and teach our own lesson plan for an entire class period; as excited as I am about it, it’s definitely a totally new and nerve-racking experience.” I think I speak for teachers everywhere when I say you can definitely handle this!
After several hours of writing about education and experiencing the system first hand, it’s almost 3pm, and Colton has only a few minutes for a late lunch before he heads to what he describes as “one of the most fulfilling parts of his day”; Campus Connections!
Campus Connections is a youth mentoring program that operates here at CSU; students are paired with at-risk youth in the Fort Collins area. One can tell from talking to him that Colton is very passionate about this; he says, “This one on one mentoring program is a great way to introduce youth to positive role models that can support them emotionally, academically, or anyway they need through counseling.”
From writing to teaching to coffee to changing the world, it is clear that a day in the life of an English education major is fun-filled, impactful, very very busy, and everything in between.
We wish Colton the best of luck in his studies!