"So many students don’t have a positive role model in their life, and I want to be able to help..."

Education |

Ann Stewart learned about Harding through participating in Uplift and knew she wanted to be a part of the Harding community.

Stewart changed her major from journalism to speech pathology but still felt it wasn’t quite the right fit and decided to visit the Career Center on campus for advice.

“I took some tests and had some counseling sessions and it helped me firmly decide that I wanted to do education. It was always something I went back to between different ideas,” Stewart said.

Stewart has enjoyed the wide range of topics her education classes have covered and is thankful for the relationships she’s made with the professors.

“All the education professors are really helpful,” Stewart said. “If you have questions, they’re going to make sure you understand what you’re learning and also show you that you can be a really great teacher.”

For her future career, Stewart is most looking forward to the positive impact she hopes to make on her students, particularly with those who may have a rough home life or have difficulties with academic work.

“So many students don’t have a positive role model in their life, and I want to be able to help,” Stewart said.

Stewarts feel she has benefited most from the time she has spent in classroom settings while in the College of Education.

“I think all of our observations hours have really prepared me,” Stewart said, “You don’t always feel like you have enough time to do it, but the time that you get to be in a classroom is good.”

She is also feels that, because her professors have all held teaching positions previously to working at Harding, she is gaining valuable examples and illustrations from various classroom scenarios.

“Our education professors have previous experience as teachers and so they bring in examples of their own classrooms — they bring real world experience.”

During her time at Harding, Stewart has been involved in social club Shantih and HUmanity and has served as the president of Scholars Advancing Learning and Teaching (SALT), a campus organization specifically for education majors.

Overall, Stewart is grateful for her time at Harding because of the one-on-one learning experiences she has had with teachers and the connections she has made through those relationships.

“A lot of the education professors are known throughout the country so that can also get your foot in the door when you graduate — they have a lot to say.”