During her final year of high school, Kai Dube volunteered at Old Town Elementary School just a couple miles down the road from the University of Maine. The experience helped solidify her choice to major in elementary education at UMaine, where she’s part of this year’s first-year class.
“I really love working with kids, and as a teacher I can have an impact on how children learn and grow,” says Dube, who also considered majoring in nursing.
In her own formative years, Dube attended a few different elementary schools before her family settled in Old Town when she was in fourth grade. Although she had some good teachers, she says all of the changes early in her education didn’t help her learning. In choosing to major in education and pursue a career as a teacher, she hopes to provide a more stable, nurturing experience for her future students.
“I gave little stuffed animals to all my students at Old Town Elementary. You could see in their faces how much it meant, just showing them that you care,” she says.
In the UMaine College of Education and Human Development, home to the state’s largest teacher preparation and training program, Dube will have even more opportunities to work with K-12 students. She hopes to teach anywhere from kindergarten through third grade but is excited to learn more about other grade levels and ages.
“I talked to some of the student teachers from UMaine and Husson (University) who did their field placements in Old Town, and they told me about working in different schools, so I’m really looking forward to that,” she says.
Dube comes to UMaine after graduating from Old Town High School in just three years, which she says was born of a desire to get started in college early. In addition to volunteering at the elementary school, she did theater in high school and worked various part-time jobs in food and customer service.
Having grown up in such close proximity to UMaine, she says there’s a familiarity with the university that attracted her beyond the academics. That familiarity grew over the past two years when Dube participated in the UMaine Upward Bound Summer Program. Upward Bound is a federally funded TRIO Program for high school students from under-resourced communities or those who will be the first person in their immediate family to go to college. It provides experience in a higher education setting they otherwise might not receive. During the summer program, for example, participants live on campus, take college classes, participate in other learning experiences and do community service projects.
“Before Upward Bound, I didn’t really know much about college because neither of my parents have a bachelor’s degree,” Dube says. “So it’s really helped me with what I needed to apply and be prepared for college.”
She says it was especially helpful in terms of navigating the Free Application for Federal Student Aid process, as well as providing opportunities to go on college tours.
“It made college seem more achievable,” she says. “I’ve always wanted to go to college and my parents have always wanted me to go. But they didn’t have the greatest college experience, so the thought of it always scared me because I didn’t have anything to go off until Upward Bound.”
Participants in Upward Bound can go to the college of their choice. Dube, who also applied and was accepted at Husson, the University of Maine at Augusta and Eastern Maine Community College, says she ultimately chose UMaine because of the people.
“Everyone I’ve met in the College of Education and Human Development, professors and advisors, have been amazing,” she says. “You can tell they care about you and want you to succeed, and that’s exactly what I want to do when I have a classroom of my own someday.”
