Meet the Fellows: Christa Cohen (2015-16 school year)

"My experience as a Maker Fellow has been beneficial in that I’ve been able to learn the administrative work that is necessary to design a program well, engage stakeholders, and manage a program in operation. My work as a fellow has helped me grow my transferrable skills in organization, professional communication, marketing material fabrication, and curriculum research and implementation. As I aim my future career towards educating professionally, these skills will help me maintain an organized classroom and syllabus, as well as implement new and exciting opportunities in the realm of STEAM education. As I also have goals of continuing my own education in the future, these skills will help me maintain an organized portfolio to document my professional growth and experiences in education.

From my time as a fellow, I learned about my own professional skills and my areas in need of development. Through interaction with teachers, coaches, and administrators, I was able to grow my capabilities in leading meetings and advancing agendas for the Foundry program. I learned that I am capable of leading in ways that my undergraduate experience had not required. When faced with adversity and tough decisions, I found I was able to manage expectations and minimize stress to those involved by clearly defining the problem and coordinating efforts to tackle the problem head-on. Within the confines of my own undergraduate education, these opportunities were limited, as I often only worked alone or in small groups of similarly-capable and similarly-interested people. Working with a group of people with diverse skills and interests has helped to grow my abilities as a strategic planner and leader. I have also learned that I am very passionate about collective impact in education, and the effect it can have on a community when implemented well.

Specifically in the Harrisburg context, I learned a lot about the current concerted efforts in the public education system in the city. I became invested by working as a key player and capacity builder in the picture of education in Harrisburg, and specifically at Camp Curtin Academy.

I gained perspective by working alongside teachers in the school, hearing their vision for STEAM education, and also by speaking with administrators and hearing their goals for the next few years. I learned so much about the hard work that is done on all levels of the public education system, and ultimately bolstered my existing respect for those in the field of education. I have learned that there is so much talent and interest amongst educators, and that this talent can be put to use in so many ways. There are people on all levels of an education community—teachers, administrators, specialists, community mentors, corporate stakeholders—who want to be involved in creative, new opportunities in STEAM education. The most important piece that I learned is that there needs to be someone to do the work of getting people connected to form partnerships and get things moving!"