Sonia Wang entered the University of Chicago to prepare for medical school, but halfway through, she changed her mind.
As she sits in a stately, wood-paneled dining hall at the university, contemplating graduation, Wang says her goal now is to be the best public schoolteacher that she can be.
She says she wants to make a difference in a child’s life the way her middle-school math teacher did for her.
But she’s a little scared.
“You know, up until college, everything is pretty much set up for us,” she said, twisting the edges of her pink scarf. “You know you had to go to school and you had to study. But after college, you can do whatever you want.”
Which, of course, is both a blessing and a curse. For the 22-year-old, graduating is “kind of frightening, kind of sad, kind of exhilarating, kind of everything,” she says.
Wang represents what many experts say is a growing number of students determined to pursue socially responsible professions and volunteer work over immediately high-paying jobs.
Evidence is largely anecdotal. But the Peace Corps, for example, has seen a spike in the number of recent grads joining its ranks since 9/11, according to Nathan Arnold, a spokesman.
“We are finding that the current generation of students are more service-oriented than they were, for example, in the ’90s, when we had fewer students doing a year of volunteer work after college,” said Madeline Wake, provost at Marquette University.
Wang is passionate about teaching, the field she came to by chance. The daughter of Korean immigrants, she graduated from Lake Forest Academy, an exclusive boarding school on Chicago’s North Shore. Once settled in at the U. of C., she got involved at a public elementary school near campus, serving as a teacher’s aide.
“I saw quickly that the students were typecast as those that excel or delinquents,” she said. “It was happening in the classroom even at a very young age.”
“My head was churning after that experience, and I just finally decided that med school is great for some people, but not for me,” she said.
Wang said her own painful childhood memories influenced her decision.
When she was growing up in the mostly white western Chicago suburb of Bloomingdale, she said she endured teasing because she was different.
She never forgot the teacher who helped her overcome her insecurities.
“You know, [other kids] would say things like your eyes are small, your nose is flat. I am Asian, so those features are basically a part of who I am,” she said.
“But as a young child, that makes a big impression. It essentially made me very shy and hesitant to speak in class.”
“Ms. Madonna,” her middle school math teacher, essentially changed her life. “She saw the potential in me. I want to be that person for someone else,” Wang said. “Otherwise, we are just setting up kids to be high school dropouts. That is ridiculous, just ridiculous — especially in America.”
Wang will be entering a field where she is an ideal candidate: Demand is strong in education, particularly for those in math and science fields — the area that Wang plans to focus on — and also for those aiming to become urban teachers, according Janet Bass, spokeswoman for the Washington-based American Federation of Teachers.
Still about 40 percent of teachers leave the profession within their first five years, Bass said.
Wang said she is unfazed.
Soon, she will be headed for a University of Chicago graduate program that will train her in urban education, and then, ready or not, she is headed for the classroom.
“I believe every student deserves to have that one teacher who really believes in them,” she said. “I’m not saying good teachers are not needed in suburban schools in ritzy white neighborhoods, but I feel there is a lack in urban schools, so that is where I want to be.”
She admits, “Some people said being a teacher in the Chicago Public Schools is the stupidest thing I could do. But my close friends supported me.”
Her main struggle is balancing the two voices in her head — one coming from the idealist who turned away from a high-earning profession to pursue her passion, the other, the woman whose parents instilled in her a practicality that says you can’t keep your head in the clouds.
She says her idealism has won — so far.
“It seemed kind of romantic to go in and help students,” Wang said, a smile creeping across her face. “But my parents told me to be realistic.”
“I know teacher burnout happens all the time,” she added. “But if I don’t pursue something I am passionate about, what is the point? What is the point of anything? I don’t think we should be consumed by idealism, but I think it needs to exist.”
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To read other stories in the Class of 2006 series, see chicagotribune.com/grads.
The series
MONDAY
Matthew Vandrush
BS business administration
TUESDAY
Alexis Pigott
BA music
WEDNESDAY
Kunimasa Odagi
BFA fashion design
THURSDAY
Jivko Chiderov
BS finance
FRIDAY
Sonia Wang
BA comparative human development
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pjones@tribune.com
