The Project that Made Me Want to Become an English Professor

As I studied the faces of my classroom peers, searching frantically for another face interested in the thought-provoking discussion on escape velocity, I suddenly realized that I was temporarily engaged in an exercise in futility. My classmates were not interested, and my teacher, as a result, was beginning to falter in his explanation of the long-distance travel concepts. I realized, with something akin to horror, that the general apathy was beginning to affect me, as I had to stifle a large yawn.

Now, such a thing would be routine, perhaps, at many schools around the nation. But my school prides itself on being the exception to the norm, and, more often than not, achieves its goal of attentive, involved, self-motivated students. Our project-based curriculum provides the perfect opportunity for any student who wants to do more than the endless repetition often inherent in the typical high school. At the end of each trimester we have something concrete, a portfolio or model, to show exactly how we designed our own restaurant, or organized a manned mission to Mars.

"Club Mars" was the second trimester project of junior year. Hence, the review of escape velocity equations. In the first trimester, we had sent unmanned space probes to analyze the Martian environment and report the data back to Earth. Now the time had come to transport ten thousand people to the Red Planet, set up a colony, and maintain peace and harmony among the residents

I liked the premise. To "set the stage" for the project, in my social studies class I was asked to define the value system of my group's utopia by ranking the importance of ten qualities that make a successful city. The list included health care, pollut...

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...never succeed. People would object to the idea of a society of "smart people," though that isn't even my intention. Edutopia would work well in theory, but just as with Communism, not in practice.

I remain undaunted that my dream society is unattainable. Instead, I am just happy to realize what is important in my life: education. Before I discovered that Edutopia was my idea of paradise, I had never realized that education was so important to me.

After my completion of the project, I re-examined my career and life goals. I had always loved English and writing and thought I would end up in publishing. Then I considered education, and now I intend to eventually become an English professor. The "Club Mars" project changed my educational aspiration, and gave me greater knowledge of my own value system. It truly made a difference in my life.