This semester, I have been faced with a variety of unexpected challenges ranging from health to the grad school selection process. This, along with my direct experience in the classroom, has changed my understanding of teaching overall. The largest evolution in how I view teaching has come in the lesson of how constantly available and present instructors need to be for their students. I have realized that it is much harder to take a sick day or just take a day off to reset when you are in a position of leadership. As a student, if I have to miss a class, the session easily goes on without me. I can just catch up with the material later, often by going to my readily-available instructor outside of class hours. It is of course important to prioritize attending every class if possible, but I am not the person keeping the course moving. Teachers, on the other hand, are solely responsible for creating and distributing content, facilitating conversation and learning, etc. I have seen my faculty mentor do everything in his power to maintain normalcy and consistency in the class no matter what is going on. If the professor has to cancel a class, they have to rework the rest of the schedule, plan on how to make up the curriculum, and put the entire class on pause. I have seen my faculty mentor as well as other professors this summer having events occur in their personal life, but doing everything in their power to show up and stay committed to the students. I have never reflected on how exhausting this must be as an instructor as they work to make themselves available to students every day. Even as a UTA, I have felt this pressure in that I do everything in my power to not miss the section I am a leader of. When there have been difficulties arising in my personal life, it is much more difficult to just skip a session. For teachers overall, more people are relying on them, invested in whether they are present and attentive. As an instructor, having an off day or being low energy affects the experience of everyone else in the classroom. This is an aspect of teaching and leadership overall that I had not previously considered. I know professors and faculty members dedicate so much time and energy to their instruction of students, but this gave me much greater first-hand experience. I know that what I have experienced this semester in this regard is the smallest fraction that professors experience every semester, and it has made me more appreciative of the teaching profession as a whole.

This change in perspective is one of the things that I definitely have found to be the most valuable about the CUTF experience. Getting to switch sides of a classroom in a sense, becoming a part of instruction rather than strictly learning, definitely expanded my view on classwork and higher-level education as a whole. That being said, however, I definitely still learned a lot about the subject matter of the course throughout the semester. Even though I have already taken the course, it is very discussion based, meaning that it changes from semester to semester depending on the cohort of students. This section of the class has brought up a variety of different views and connections to modern-day life that we did not discuss last year. Listening to a whole new group of individuals as well as the overall class dynamic has allowed me to learn so much more about a topic that I am extremely interested in. Thus, the new perspective I have gained regarding teaching and the unique viewpoints offered by students have been the most valuable aspects of the CUTF experience.

As this semester is coming to a close, I still have a large portion of my UTA work to do as I will be mentoring students on their final content analysis project for the course. I am hopeful that I can implement all that I have learned through shadowing my faculty mentor to be of utmost assistance to all of the students. After this semester is over, I will be graduating and heading to law school! I will most definitely keep the new ideas I have learned regarding states’ use of media and messaging with me throughout this. More importantly, however, I will go forward with a newfound appreciation for the professors I learn from and the dedication they put into my learning.