Motivated by new career ambitions, education graduate heads to Spain

Jenna Dean came to Rider thinking she knew exactly what she wanted — to be a teacher in the town where she grew up. But time, circumstance and her own ambition will take her farther away than she could have dreamed when she first enrolled at the University.

“When I went to college, I was like, I will be a teacher and get on the tenure track and that will kind of be it,” says Dean. “I thought that I would go back home to my hometown of Washington Township, N.J., and just teach there forever. But now I see that the world is so much bigger than that and there is so much more. Now that I have my degree and all my teacher certifications, I want to do more than I ever thought I could before.”

Before earning her bachelor’s in elementary education and multidisciplinary studies with a minor in special education and a certificate in English as a second language, Dean spent a semester in Australia which opened her eyes to how much one can learn through travel.

Upon her return to campus, she furthered her interests by becoming a student worker in Rider’s Office for International Education. It was there that Dean saw her dream job up close.

She connected with the office’s assistant director, Kim Algeo, and when Algeo asked what Dean wanted to do as a career, she had a ready answer: “I told her, ‘I kind of like your job!’ You get to help people travel, and you get to travel and help students connect with schools all over the world.”

Algeo gave her advice on how to pursue a career in international education, suggestions that Dean has taken to heart. In September she will begin a nine-month stint as a language and culture assistant in an elementary school in Spain, an arrangement she made through the Council on International Educational Exchange.

As a language and culture assistant, Dean will be based at an English immersive language school in Madrid, supporting local teachers by assisting classes and small groups of students as they develop listening and English conversational skills, as well as their understanding of American culture.

Dean says she came to Rider because she loved the feel of a close-knit campus community. “That was a big pull for me,” she says. “I knew that at Rider I wasn’t going to get lost in the crowd.”

Her advice to other students following in her footsteps is simple: Do everything. “If you want to travel, then travel. If you want to take six classes a semester because you don’t know what you want to do, then do that. Get teaching experiences, get real-life experiences, get the internships and the co-ops.”

In her former role as an Admissions tour guide, Dean says that she would tell prospective students, “Do what you want. But, no matter where you go, you are not going to have fun if you just sit in your dorm room, get up and go to class, and come back and sit in your dorm room. The experience is really what you make of it. So, if you want a good one, you’re going to have to go and put yourself out there.”