As someone who is an education major, I've heard the assumptions that my major is easy. I'd like to inform you; it is not. Many people assume, just because I am working with kids, means that my classes are easy. That is not the case.

I may not sit through lectures just taking notes from a powerpoint. My classes include lots of hands-on experiences instead. It is understandable that my math education class could be seen as easy because we work with connecting cubes and frames. However, the concept behind those cubes is the challenging part. Children learn at different speeds, and teaching a lesson can be challenging to apply to all students. It may appear frivolous that in my primary reading class, my professor taught us how to write the alphabet properly. Learning how to do a simple thing such as that is a necessary foundation when teaching kids how to write words that they've never attempted to write before. Just because my classes look different on the outside than yours, doesn't mean it's easy.

Not only do I have a full schedule of courses, but I also manage a very hectic schedule of clinical assignments in schools. During this semester, I work with three different schools with multiple unique tasks that I have to complete. Working with class, work, clubs, and when to go to these schools is a challenge. On top of that, I spend hours writing and working on lesson plans to use in these classrooms, and that takes a lot of time in itself.

To anyone who thinks education majors have it easy, I encourage you to look at everything we have to do. Our classes aren't just coloring pictures and making a foldable, although this is part of it. We have to go beyond learning how to do a simple task but also learn how to teach it to a diverse crowd of students. We have respect for other career paths, why can't you respect ours? Everyone has looked up to teachers for guidance in a way that went beyond the classroom. It takes a special type of person to become a teacher and to handle the course load and work that comes with it.

No major is easy. Each college has its hardships and challenges that may not be noticeable from the outside. Let's just learn to appreciate one another for what they are studying, I know I could never major in engineering, and not everybody could be a teacher, and that's okay.