Dealing with both ends of the spectrum: Student and Teacher

By Noor AlKhars

When you’re in college, it almost seems impossible to picture life outside of it. The newness of it all never gets old; nothing is ever predictable, and the world really does feel like your oyster. However, what many adults fail to tell us is that eventually, we’re going to have to face the music. The curtains will drop, you’ll submit your final assignment, hand in your student ID, and be well on your way to the next phase of your life: The Job Hunt phase. Now, most of us enter adulthood with great ambitions on how we’ll start our own ventures or at least put our degree to good use; however, if someone were to tell me that most adults settle for jobs that drain them with little to no satisfaction solely for the money and the lack of jobs, I would have laughed in their faces, knowing that I’ve never settled for anything I didn’t deserve in life.

So, imagine the sheer disappointment I felt when I settled for a job I had no interest in or was not emotionally qualified for, but had to accept it simply because it was considered the best option. Don’t get me wrong; being a teacher is the most fulfilling job for those who go into the profession willingly. It takes someone who is immensely strong, extremely patient, caring, and incontestably devoted to have what it takes to deal with the tribulations of being a teacher. The reality of my life consisted of a lot of disassociation; it felt like I had completely given up on my life; however, it did not strike me as something that was concerning or alarming, as most adults of my age were all going through the same thing, and I thought this was completely normal.

However, the remaining question kept me up at night: Was this life after college? You start out being so full of life, eager and curious to learn with a powerful sense of ambition and determination, and then you become at drained 20-something – dealing with identity crisis issues, and surely enough, that fire in your belly starts to dissolve as you step into adulthood. I graduated in the spring of January, and months later, I was employed in May of the same year. People went from calling me by my name to now calling me “Ms”. Nothing ever prepares you for the horrors of dealing with teenagers or the painfully limiting curriculum that leaves no room for creativity.

Eventually, teaching becomes a step-by-step monotone method, leaving both the teacher and student begging for the lesson to be over. While I did find the humor of having to deal with teenagers that reminded me of my mischievous teenage self, my respect for my teachers who had to put up with so much grew immensely. The upsides to teaching could be the one or two students who actually listen and appreciate the time you spent rephrasing and repeating each point to enhance their learning experience, but other than that, being a teacher is truly not for the weak. Additionally, given the short period in which I reluctantly transitioned from student to teacher, I was having a difficult time adjusting to the whole personality change everyone in the workforce expects of you.

As most of my co-workers were in their mid-40s and over, being a teacher that was friendly, energetic, and vivacious was not within the job requirements of being a high school teacher, or at least not in the public sector. So, eventually, you learn to mirror those around you, and after doing that for eight months straight, your personality as well as your light start to burn out. I remember someone once telling me that once you start being an adult, all you ever do is settle because that’s just real life, and in real life, you learn to accept what’s given to you because you don’t want to seem too greedy. “You learn to be happy in the shoes you’re wearing,” they said, and while that may be true when measured against most things in life, I will simply not accept a life I do not deserve.

So, if you’re reading this whether you’ve just graduated high school and someone tells you to pick the major that’s going to make you the most money despite your having zero interest in it, or if you’re someone who’s miserable in their job and everyone around you tells you to stay because there’s no better option, or if you’re someone who’s dying to pave your own path by starting your own business and people keep telling you it’s too big of a risk, let me just tell you this: I may be 23 with little to no experience in life, but I am certain that we miss out on 100% of the opportunities we do not take. Nothing ever measures up to the sensation of being emotionally satisfied. We were put on this earth for different purposes, and there’s room for everyone.

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