Alumni Stories

I work for EF Education First, the largest international education company in the world, where I am the Ambassador Program Manager for EF High School Exchange Year.

After Dartmouth, I dabbled in all aspects of education—curriculum development, ESL, early childhood education, high school English, and academic research, but all of them left me wanting a little more. I started my career in the 360 Global Management Trainee program where I spent a year working on projects that focus on creating a beautiful customer experience for everyone that interacts with EF, then moved to High School Exchange Year where I am piloting a Student Ambassador program that aims to provide a community for exchange students for them to come together, share their experiences with future exchange students and explore their natural strengths.

The skills that make us irreplaceable as employees are the less tangible ones – the social and emotional skills. These are developed and bolstered in the Education Department and I know that any career would benefit from learning just how we learn and develop as people. I never found a natural place to fit in academically at Dartmouth based on my international interests until I found the Education Minor. Education is more than teaching. Every aspect of our life is education and I am proud to be able to work for a company that meets people where they are.

I am a PhD student at the University of Southern California advised by Dr. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang. In general terms I use the MBE lens to study social, emotional, and identity development during adolescence.

After Dartmouth I worked at Abt Associates, a research firm in Cambridge, MA as part of a team implementing, evaluating, and providing technical research assistance to program evaluators of various education-related projects. The projects I worked on included well-known federal initiatives such as the WIC program, or the I3 grant program, as well as other programs that provided scholarships and stipends to recruit STEM majors and professionals into teaching in high needs schools, provided professional development to STEM teachers in each state's highest-need districts, and provided free lunch to all students in high-needs districts, even those students not eligible by federal standards for free or reduced priced school meals.

The Education minor at Dartmouth showed me that an interdisciplinary approach to studying can be incredibly fruitful. I was inspired by the classes and research to make my career in the field of education and to pursue a PhD with an MBE focus in order to contribute to the research in this field.   

I work as a Tutor Coordinator and Data Analyst at Thomas College in Waterville, ME. Since graduating from Dartmouth, I earned a M.A. in Applied Developmental and Educational Psychology from Boston College. During graduate school, I was a graduate research assistant for several projects on math learning in early childhood. I also worked as a resident assistant at Showa Boston and as a graduate assistant for BC’s TRIO Student Support Services program. Then, I worked for Upward Bound Math Science at the University of Maine during the summer before starting my work at Thomas.

The focus of the Education Department minor is distinctive and helped me feel prepared for graduate school. The dedication of the Education faculty to their teaching and to their students is incredible. Their commitment to working at the nexus of theory, research, and practice is one that I have adopted and incorporate into my work every day, through my emphasis on data-driven decision making when working with or on behalf of students.