Meet Emily: Occupational education studies

emily

"The classes were small and personable, and you were able to get to know your classmates and the professors a little bit better."

  • What is your role and where do you work?

    I am a family and consumer science teacher at Portage Northern High School.

  • What does a day look like for you?

    A day of a teacher is pretty crazy. I have about 180 students a day and I have six out of seven hours that I teach a day and I have a variety of classes that I teach. I teach foods and nutrition, advanced foods and nutrition and child development parenting. So I have very hands on classes which are really busy.

  • Why did you become a teacher?

    Okay, So I chose to be an educator because I knew that I wanted to help people and help children, and I enjoyed school myself. And so I always knew that I wanted to be a teacher growing up. I did struggle trying to figure out what subject teacher that I wanted to be. But when I found out, WMU had a family consumer science program, I'm like, that is me! Because I loved baking and sewing with my grandma, being in the kitchen and just doing all sorts of hands on stuff. So once I found out that WMU had the program, that was what helped me to decide.

  • Why did you transfer to Western?

    I didn't really want to go super far away being from the Vicksburg area, and I liked the feel of Western being bigger than like a community college, but not as huge as a larger university.

  • What was the program like at Western?

    I really liked the program at Western because it was small and not huge. Some of the business classes that I did take were larger classes, but the family consumer science classes were small and personable, and you were able to get to know your classmates and the professors a little bit better because of the small atmosphere.

  • Did you do any internships during your program?

    I did two internships when I was at WMU. So I did a semester where I had a class that was a pre-internship class, and then the following semester I had my full internship from January to April.

  • What was your experience with professors?

    I had great experiences with professors and I didn't have any issues.

  • Why did you go back for a master's degree?

    I received my bachelor's in 2011 and then I got my masters in 2019. So I took a few years of teaching before I decided to go and get my masters just to kind of get my feet in the ground and get good at what I was doing and then feel more comfortable. And then I decided to go back for my masters. Also with getting your masters at a lot of schools, you're on another pay scale, so not only was I able to learn additional things in my program area, I was also able to move up on the pay scale for teaching.

  • Why should future educators pick Western?

    I think future educators should pick Western because of the options that they have. They have a lot of fun, smaller programs. For example, family and consumer science.

    And if you wanted to change your major from family and consumer science, they have different education majors and minors that you can choose from.

Occupational education studies at WMU

The Bachelor of Science in occupational education studies is an articulated degree completed in partnership between WMU and 14 Michigan community colleges. This degree program is designed specifically for those individuals who wish to become certified teachers in a technical subject major as approved by the Michigan state Board of Education.

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