Jack Letson

           For UM students who acquire the alternative master’s in education, graduate study serves as a tool that literally puts their bachelor’s degree to work in the school system. The degree also allows students to change career paths that have shifted after graduation, meaning that students can redefine themselves academically in a short course of time.

A 7th Grade math teacher at Simmons Middle School in Hoover, Jack Letson graduated from UM in 2008 with his M.Ed. in Secondary Education. However, Letson is one such student who didn’t initially set out to be a teacher. After completing his bachelor’s and spending about a year working in the finance industry, he realized that he wanted to enter a different field that would be more fulfilling to him personally. Having heard great things about the Alternative M.Ed. at UM and the high recommendations from the graduates coming out of the program, Letson decided to pursue a concentration in math education.

For Letson, the transition from his large university experience as an undergraduate was a stark contrast to the atmosphere that he experienced when embarking upon his graduate studies at UM. Particularly, he relished the small class sizes that contained an average of 20 or fewer students, while comparatively, the smaller classes he had been enrolled in elsewhere contained upwards of 50 students. Citing the “personal attention” and “close relationships with teachers” as playing a major part in his overall academic growth, Letson emphasized the sense of being an individual his professors knew rather than just a number lost in a crowd.

In addition to the value of the classroom interactions, Mr. Letson found the program to be invaluable for the hands-on experience that it provided through the students’ school placements that begin in the very first semester of study. Despite coming from a background with no prior educational preparation, Letson observed that Alternative M.Ed. graduates like himself were “ready to teach from square one” because of the thorough immersion in multiple grade levels and the variety of situations they had already encountered upon being hired. As a result, he reflects that he “never felt intimidated stepping into a classroom,” even when that classroom was his own as a first-year teacher in 2008.

            A finance major turned math teacher, Letson can now look back on almost four years of experience in education—a field that he finds daily satisfaction and creative challenge in. Regardless of his acquired proficiency in crafting innovative lesson plans, Letson mentioned that he still refers to the lessons taught by his UM professors for continual guidance.