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Stepping into the classroom as a first-time teacher can be daunting. Adding the pressure of graduate coursework can make it even more so, but that’s exactly the task Alexandria Feaster and Kristi Benetti undertook.

Immediately following their respective college graduations — Feaster from LA Tech, Benetti from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette — the emerging teachers enrolled in UL Lafayette’s .

“I knew from family being in education that I didn’t want to be in the classroom all my life,” says Feaster. “I wanted to get another degree so that I could one day do something to help teachers but not in an administrative role.”

Benetti had similar inclinations and says she didn’t want to lose momentum by taking time away from her education.

“I wanted to go back to school as soon as I could because I thought if I didn’t, it would never get done,” she says. “I saw my alma mater was offering a program entirely online. That was very appealing because I had a young child, and I had a lot to do.”

She was drawn to the program for its flexibility, and says she found it was exactly what she wanted.

“(The courses) reached me on such a personal level because that’s how I want to be as a teacher, to be a mentor to others and to my students,” she says. “I was like, ‘wow, this is what I’m meant to do. I’m definitely in the right place.’”

Benetti says she was able to take what she was learning in the online graduate program and immediately apply it to her classroom in New Iberia, where she’s taught the last four years.

“It made me research the problems I was having in my classroom,” she says. “I was already required to have these projects done and these papers written so when a problem came up in my classroom, I used that to devise a solution.”

Feaster has taught elementary classes in Homer, Louisiana, for the last two years. She has also chaired a faculty committee, served as a leadership team member, sponsors the high school cheer squad, and has been a teacher leader.

With her extra responsibilities, Feaster says she had to to stay on top of her online graduate courses.

“Things get crazy during the week, but I would make time one day a week to look at everything that’s due and try to make a plan,” she says.

She said she’d block out time based on what was due that week, how much time she’d need to get started and how much time she might need through the weekend to complete assignments or participate in discussion boards.

Benetti said time management was something she had to quickly learn working full time while attending school online.

“I had to really plan a schedule. Scheduling and time management was something I had to learn because I didn’t have to know how to do that during my bachelor’s program. I didn’t have a full time job, I didn’t have lessons to plan or papers to grade,” she says. “I had to look for help.”

In addition to careful planning, Benetti joined and adopted principles from the 40-Hour Teacher Workweek. 

Feaster says UL Lafayette professors also helped students keep a balance by accommodating their professional lives.

“I had a lot going on these past two years, but as long as I was open with communication, they were always good about responding and were very accommodating. Most of them had been teachers so they understood where I was coming from,” Feaster says. “It was always a team effort. You didn’t feel alone.”

Benetti says her experience with online faculty mirrored her experience as an on-campus UL Lafayette student.

“It wasn’t much different from scheduling a meeting and going to their office to talk to them in person,” Benetti says. “They were only ever an email away. They were very responsive with feedback and any questions I had.”

She says she also found support from her peers.

“I met with a couple of my colleagues I hadn’t worked with before beginning the program to collaborate for the sake of the course, which is what we need as teachers: like-minded individuals we can sound off with from time to time and work to solve problems,” Benetti says.

Upon graduation from the M.Ed. in Curriculum & Instruction, Instructional Specialist program, Feaster says she’ll begin taking steps to earn a specialist degree. 

“I’m trying to get it all out of the way,” she says.

Benetti is taking on a different type of challenge, moving to a charter school in Franklin to teach English language arts, run the school’s STEAM lab, and serve as technology coach.

“It’s going to give me some additional experience, and I’m hoping that can lead to some instructional coaching and mentoring,” she says.

Along the way, she intends to earn additional credentials to achieve her long-term goal of starting an independent education consulting firm.

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