I quit my teaching job. My last day was June 28th, 2022. Three and a half years at M.S. 137 as a band director, and it's done.
I don't really know how to write about this without sounding like I'm either bitter or trying to be inspirational, so I'll just be honest: I loved teaching. I built that band program from nothing! I ran after-school rehearsals from 2:35 to 5:00 PM every single day. I had students tell me I was the reason they came to school, which is simultaneously the best thing anyone has ever said to me and the heaviest thing I've ever had to carry.
During COVID I couldn't even teach band. They had me "teaching off a cart," going room to room. So I pivoted and my students made entire digital albums on GarageBand on iPads. One kid who never spoke in class produced a three-track EP that made me tear up in the teacher's bathroom. I'm not making that up.
But I was done. Mentally, emotionally, financially, just done. The last few months of the school year I was counting days until June 28th. I hated admitting that to myself.
In June I applied for the Galvanize Software Engineering scholarship. The application made me write about why I was switching careers, and I ended up writing about my mom. She's a 60-year-old immigrant who put off her own education to raise me alone. She's about to student teach full-time, which means she's losing her income from subbing. I need to be able to take care of her. Teaching salaries were never going to get me there.
So I enrolled in a second Bachelor's degree in Computer Science at Queens College. Same school, completely different life. First class? Precalculus. The subject that terrorized me in high school! I signed up for a four-week intensive over the summer and I'm throwing myself at it.
The plan is simple: study 4-5 hours a day, go to school part-time, work part-time, and somehow not lose my mind. I'm also starting to pick up freelance dev work for schools, and it turns out knowing how schools actually work is pretty useful when you're building software for them.
I keep thinking about being 11 years old, messing with RuneScape private servers, changing NPC IDs in Java code I didn't understand. That kid would think this is crazy. That kid would also be pretty hyped.
I'm terrified. But honestly? I'm excited for the first time in a long time.