After working as a restaurant manager for 20 years, Rikki Tobolski and her husband moved to Indiana to be closer to family. A change in where she lived meant a change in career—which led Tobolski to the Transition to Teaching program at the IU School of Education.
Tobolski had always wanted to work in education, and moving to a new city was the perfect opportunity. After two years working as a para, she enrolled in the T2T program. Tobolski is now studying to be a fully-licensed teacher while working in special education.
One of the major benefits to students of the Transition to Teaching program is the ability to go through the program while continuing to teach and gain valuable experience. Current classroom teaching responsibilities also count towards field experience and student teaching requirements. While Tobolski acknowledges that full-time teaching and completing a degree program is a lot, her goal is finishing the T2T program by next fall, a plan helped by a recent scholarship she won from the Indiana Commission for Higher Education.
So far, Tobolski’s teaching experience has been amazing—and supportive.
“I really feel like I fit like a glove. The team I am on is amazing. You hear so much about the world of education and how daunting it is but my experience has been wonderful, supportive, encouraging and fun!”