A Grateful Student Intent on Becoming a Great Teacher

“Like a lot of students, I started college thinking I was pre-med,” she says, adding that it took just one chemistry course to “help me realize I didn’t want to do something that wouldn’t make me happy.”

For a while, she admits, “I was adrift and wondered, what am I good at?” She loved to write, enjoyed classes in media, and considered journalism. But she became disillusioned when one media course opened her eyes to the economic side of journalism and the question of who pays for and controls a publication.

She found her way ahead by looking back at her experiences growing up – when she had great teachers in school, and at the same time helped her mother care for and teach young children.

She enrolled in the Hunter School of Education’s undergraduate program in early childhood education, where she and her classmates completed extensive coursework in pedagogy and related fields, worked daily as student teachers in public schools, and received guidance and mentoring from faculty advisors like Carmen Brown, coordinator of the Early Childhood Education Program.

“Dr. Brown was very supportive and always told us how rewarding teaching can be, but she never sugarcoated things,” Neary says. ”She helped us understand and handle the realities of teaching.” Neary also learned a lot about classroom management as a volunteer with Hunter’s Peer Health Exchange, visiting local high schools to teach classes in mental health.

Her Fulbright destination is the La Rioja wine-producing province of northern Spain, where she’ll teach English to elementary school students. She plans to earn a master’s in education when she comes back to New York, and perhaps attend law school at some point in the future. Her specific area of interest is special-education law.

“I want to make sure special-education students get what they’re entitled to under state and federal law,” she says. “But I’m also open to seeing what other opportunities arise. Whatever I do, I want to contribute positively to the world around me.”

To get expert help with applying for NSF Graduate Research Fellowships and other national awards, Hunter students and graduates should contact The Ruth & Harold Newman Office of Prestigious Scholarships & Fellowships at (212) 396-6910 or ops@hunter.cuny.edu.