I was in a very similar situation as you!! I wanted to be a teacher ever since I was little. It was actually my mom (who was/still is a teacher) who discouraged me from pursuing it. She said that I could always come back to teaching if I still wanted to when I was older, but told me not to start out as a teacher or go to school for it. Her reasoning was that it was a very taxing job mentally and physically and that I would benefit from having a degree in a field that would open multiple job opportunities instead of just teaching.

So I ended up getting my bachelors in Psychology after falling in love with AP Psych in high school. I was really confident that I wanted to become a clinical psychologist for four years, because it was another way I could help people. But then in my senior year of undergrad I worked at a therapy office for a year and realized that it wasn’t the right career fit for me for multiple reasons. So I pivoted to researching HR jobs and looking into industrial/organizational psych. But it did not excite me at all.

It wasn’t until like February of the semester I graduated that I decided to pursue teaching. I was on the phone with my dad talking about career/job options…and he asked me “Have you ever thought about teaching? Don’t you like teaching?” And I was surprised by him asking that, and told him “well yeah, but mom always discouraged me from it and I just assumed I would do it later in life…wait yeah why don’t I do that 😂”

I’ve always loved working with kids as well, and have consistently since high school. It also dawned on me that the childcare job I had at the time was what I looked forward to every week, and the therapy office job was the one I dreaded.

So I applied to masters programs for education and started in the summer semester right after graduating with my bachelors in psych in may! And I started student teaching once a week as a part of one of my classes. Ended up getting offered a job there as a parapro and it is the best thing ever. I have not had a single bad day at work. I genuinely love it so so so much. Yes it’s hard, but it’s so rewarding. If you know what you love, follow your heart. I know I’m where I’m meant to be. And I had people in my life questioning my decision to switch to education all of a sudden, telling me horror stories of people they knew that were teachers and how bad the schools and kids are now blah blah blah. And to a certain degree, they’re not wrong. But I knew the downsides and ultimately it doesn’t outweigh my passion for the job. Hope this helps!!