Meet Stephanie: Family and consumer sciences teacher education

I am a family consumer science instructor and in my role, a day looks like meeting with students. Lots of different students, grades nine through 12, working with them in either cooking atmosphere or interior design atmosphere, doing projects, having meetings, talking with students in the hall, Conversating with coworkers.

Well, what inspired me to become a teacher is I really enjoy working with young people and I actually really like this family consumer science class because it works with all ages, all different types of learners, all ranges of experience, and it is something that they'll carry with them through the rest of their life.

As a teacher, I advise the gardening club and the cooking club, which are actually student run, but they, they need a teacher to like buy ingredients and help them decide what recipes they're going to do. Also, oversee that everyone's doing what they're supposed to and being safe. But the gardening club's nice because lots of different types of students can come and they earn service hours, so they're a little bit more excited.

But the cooking club is also fun because everyone gets to eat, so it also gets lots of different people that aren't in my classes. So I get to see lots of different students from other areas of the school that they may or may not have had me and it gets them excited to possibly join my classes in the future.

The program at Western was really welcoming. The faculty were so helpful and they were willing to work with you to whatever degree that you chose or if you wanted to start a student organization or if you had any questions. 

I really enjoyed working with the faculty. They were so helpful and kind and just willing to help with all kinds of areas of learning and questions. I was a fashion design and development teaching assistant for four semesters, so that was also another aspect of learning there that I got to do some hands on and work with instructors. Overall they're still helpful with keeping the program going and networking.

Yes, and I'm also Hispanic, so it was really awesome to be able to graduate and also be part of like that aspect of my life. It was something that I didn't actually think that I would do because I'm an adult learner. So going to college later in life or back to college later in life was something that was challenging but also like super rewarding because it was something of like my own and I was able to share it with my family and they were really proud.

I am from this area. I lived out of state and moved back here to go to Western because they have the family consumer science department and they had the degree that I wanted and it was in proximity to where I lived and I knew the area.

I think that future educators should study at Western because it is such a comforting, nice community that will help you not only while you're in school, but also after you graduate to network and be able to keep the program going. And you really have a lot of different opportunities that you can experience without going very far and still have a lot of things around you.