Middlesex Community College: MCC Alumna Finds Footing In Career During Pandemic

Press release from the Middlesex Community College:

Caitlin Buckley

5/11/2021

Dana Meyer started her teaching career amid a pandemic. The Middlesex Community College alumna had always felt drawn to working with children and in a school setting, even though she was unsure of what to pursue for a degree. She realized her passion and academic and professional path while she was at Middlesex.

Calling this realization a “self-driven epiphany kind of moment,” Meyer – who lives in Chelmsford – enjoyed taking courses within MCC’s Education department, as well as Psychology and Sociology classes. Through these courses she understood that being a teacher is where she fit into society and how she could help other people, particularly the next generation of students.

“Middlesex is where I started to found myself as an adult,” she said. “I started to live these individual experiences – whether it was the Outdoor Adventure Club, volunteering or poetry events – where I could really come into my own, find my voice and place in the world in a community that was incredibly welcoming and inclusive.”

A Commonwealth Honors program student during her time at MCC, Meyer participated in several events and activities around campus, including working as an Orientation Leader. Through these experiences, she learned how to be a leader who “leads by lifting others up.”

“A teacher is there for the students and Middlesex really helped highlight the boons of being in that position,” she said. “That sense of community was so instilled in every part of the campus and every part of the classes. I still feel it today and I try to instill it in my own environments, like in my classroom.”

After graduating from Middlesex in 2019, Meyer transferred to Fitchburg State University where she transferred all of her credits to complete her bachelor’s degree. While working as a long term substitute in a fourth grade classroom in Belmont, she is also finishing up her master’s degree at Fitchburg State. Her start as a teacher just happened to be in the midst of a pandemic.

“It was probably the highest value of learning on the fly that you could have,” she said. “I was able to take everything that I learned in theory from all of my degrees and put it into practice. It was of course wild – I had a lot of sprinting to do to make sure I was keeping up and giving the best I could to my students. I have grown so much from just this year.”

As the school year started in a hybrid format, Meyer was teaching two cohorts of students in person and then online in the afternoon. She is happy to have her students all back in-person now, but while doing remote teaching, she was able to learn a lot about different technology she could use in her classroom. Not only did it help her practice to learn and try different methods of teaching, she also believes it helped to keep her students engaged while online.

Meyer’s first experience in a classroom happened as part of a Service-Learning opportunity in one of her Education courses at Middlesex. She visited a classroom and was able to then reflect on what she witnessed and connect it to what she was learning in her own classes.

While at Middlesex, Meyer also spent time babysitting, nannying and volunteering for special education programs in schools. She worked as a substitute teacher while she was studying at Fitchburg State, in addition to more practicum experiences in a classroom.

“Getting into the classroom early on makes an enormous difference,” she said. “You can read about children and read about theory and development, but until you’re seeing it, you’re not really getting a sense of how it works.”

For Meyer, Middlesex “fostered success and achievement.” It starts with having professors who were passionate about their subject and shared their experiences working in the fields they were teaching. In her classes, she got to hear about lived experiences to connect the content to actual situations, including strategies for what works and what does not.

One of the most relevant teaching moments Meyer experienced in her Education courses at MCC was when her professor handed out a printout – with names blacked out – of challenging parent emails. After reading through them, her professor asked them, “what do you do?”

“These real-life situations are how I really started to build both a lens and skill set for how to address different situations that I would then encounter in a classroom,” she said. “It equipped me with tools that I’m even subconsciously putting into play today.”

While at Middlesex, Meyer also valued the diversity of the community – something she now emphasizes in her own classroom. Because Middlesex fosters an inclusive environment, Meyer felt like the college – including other students, faculty and staff – cared about her individual success and gave her opportunities to develop her voice. Having a space at MCC to share her writing at open poetry events and fiction readings in particular gave her a platform.

“The ability to listen to stories, share my own story of coming originally from Israel, being a first generation college student really opened my eyes, my heart, my mind to the world,” she said. “It’s something that I implement right into my classroom. Our diversity share is huge and my students have different walks of life even at 10-years-old, so I think it’s important to share and explore other languages and cultures.”

Despite the pandemic, Meyer is enjoying the start of her career. And while she continues to learn and hone her practice, she emphasizes that she “started with the best roots at MCC.”

The Education pathway at MCC helps students go into – and succeed in – the workforce or transfer to four-year schools with its award-winning and affordable offerings, small class sizes and flexible schedules. Visit https://www.middlesex.mass.edu/education/ for more information and to discover your path to an Education degree at Middlesex.

MCC is celebrating 50 years! If you have ever taken a class at MCC, you are an alum! To share your story – and join in on the 50th anniversary celebrations – contact Amy Lee, Director of Annual Giving and Alumni Relations, at 978-656-3028 or leea@middlesex.mass.edu. Visit www.middlesex.mass.edu/alumni/ for more information and to join the Alumni Association.

Visit www.middlesex.mass.edu or call 1-800-818-3434 to register for the Summer and Fall 2021 semesters at Middlesex.

Discover your path at Middlesex Community College. As one of the largest, most comprehensive community colleges in Massachusetts, MCC has been a proven leader in online education for more than 20 years. We educate, engage and empower a diverse community of learners, offering more than 80 degree and certificate programs – plus hundreds of noncredit courses. Middlesex Community College: Student success starts here!

This press release was produced by the Middlesex Community College. The views expressed here are the author’s own.