Jenna Saade
Jenna sees her college experience as an opportunity that her mom did not have. Her mom is originally from Lebanon and grew up during the war. She briefly went to college, however had to stop due to family obligations and the opportunity to immigrate to the U.S.
There was no doubt that Jenna, and her twin sister, would receive higher education. Jenna wishes to be a high school history teacher. “Fun fact, I used to hate history. I looked at my twin sister and I said Jayda, if I ever teach history, you can laugh at me, because that's not going to happen. And now, I want to be a high school history teacher. All my teachers in high school were awesome, but specifically my history teacher. It felt as if they were teaching it through a different lens. It was more interesting, and it wasn't all about memorization. It was more like the conceptual ideas and they also related it to current events. Now in college, I just love it more.” Along with going to school full time, Jenna works for Jumpstart as well as two other part-time jobs. Jumpstart is a program that specializes in early education to prepare children for Kindergarten. Here, she is a preschool teacher through AmeriCorps as well as the team leader for her team. “It’s a team of me and six others who help in the classroom. We go in every Tuesday and Thursday for a couple of hours and we teach kids. I lead everything while the other members of my team are my co-teachers. We break off into mini groups and help children ages 2-5 years old and prepare them for their transition into Kindergarten.” |
Jenna mentioned that being a first-generation student made her feel alone at times, but programs like the River Hawk Scholars Academy helped her.
“Because of the Riverwalk Scholars Academy, I have people who feel the same way as me who are guiding us, who make sure we know how to register for classes and give us the advantage of registering early. We also got the advantage of moving in early. It was nice because we avoided the chaos of everyone else moving in and we got acquainted with the college life first. The majority of us had never really stepped foot on a college campus before prior to moving in so it definitely helped me adjust.”
Hard work does pay off, and Jenna’s passion is very obvious and contagious. She will make an amazing educator.
“Because of the Riverwalk Scholars Academy, I have people who feel the same way as me who are guiding us, who make sure we know how to register for classes and give us the advantage of registering early. We also got the advantage of moving in early. It was nice because we avoided the chaos of everyone else moving in and we got acquainted with the college life first. The majority of us had never really stepped foot on a college campus before prior to moving in so it definitely helped me adjust.”
Hard work does pay off, and Jenna’s passion is very obvious and contagious. She will make an amazing educator.