San Jose State University

Date: Apr 04 2015
Major: Education (This Major's Salary over time)
Go into this department with your eyes open. When I went there, the professors were great (most) and classes were fine, but the student teaching placement was beyond awful. The department didn't make the effort to place us in advance and was scrambling to halfway through the semester to find ANY place for us to go. The placement coordinator didn't even know what my field was and tried to place in a completely different area. She was soo disorganized but apparently a friend of the Dept chairman so she had this job, which she just didn't have time for. The mentor teachers weren't vetted whatsoever, because SJSU was desperate for anyone to take us. I was placed in a bad situation midway through the fall semester, and although I worked my butt off 100% of the time trying to deal with the disorganized teacher, the class I was given (his most difficult class ever, according to the teacher himself, a veteran of 20 years teaching), and a supervisor who was off her rocker (second semester), I was failed from the program. It turned out the last student teacher that mentor had had, had quit out of frustration. The mentor laughed when he told me that ? but since we were already halfway through the semester, I didn?t have the luxury of time to quit. Honestly, I have had many jobs and experiences, but the people in charge in the University took absolutely NO responsibility for their disorganized and awful student teaching program. Just put me on probation (for having to deal with a mentor teacher who kept changing his mind about what he wanted to do every other week ? I was supposed to be planning for PACT?.had to change that 3 times?.) I didn't mention my predicament to any other student till I realized I was going to fail, then heard from half a dozen students that they had had the same experience and were repeating their student teaching. NOT because they had done anything wrong - but because the school just let them hang in the wind when they were in with a bad teacher or situation. I heard so many complaints from other students then I realized this wasn't an isolated case. The woman in charge of the Education department also completely out to lunch and dismissed the whole thing as my fault. Truly, I worked hard, spent 100% of my time inside and outside the classroom trying to do the right thing, and SJSU did nothing to rectify but make excuses for themselves. Actually they didn't even do that, just drew the cloak of authority around themselves. I would say don't go there at all, but if you have to, take charge of your student teaching experience. Students who had good experiences knew the schools they were going to, or got lucky.