Many of our majors are interested in teaching. This page contains information on teaching as a summer experience, after Amherst as a career, or even spending a semester abroad focusing on mathematics education in Budapest. Scroll down to find the section you are interested in.
Summer Teaching Opportunities
There are various programs that hire college students to be teachers and mentors to high-school students taking summer math programs:
- The PROMYS program at Boston University hires undergraduates to be counsellors in an intensive math camp for advanced high school students.
- MathPath is aimed at middle school students and hires undergraduate counselors.
- The Teaching Experience for Undergraduates program includes a Math TEU at Brown and a Science TEU at Trinity College.
- The American Mathematical Society maintains a longer list of possible math camp employment positions.
- Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth hires undergraduates to summer positions.
- Brown Summer High School Math Program may hire students interested in math education.
- Bridge to Enter Advanced Mathematics is free to underserved students in 6th and 7th grades and hires college students as camp counselors and teaching assistants.
Study Abroad Teaching Opportunities
The Budapest Seminars in Mathematics Education is a study abroad program based in Budapest. Students in the program study how mathematics is taught in Hungarian high schools and have the opportunity to take one math elective through the related study abroad program Budapest Seminars in Mathematics. More information can be found at www.bsmeducation.com
Teaching After Graduation
Every year, some of our graduating majors go into teaching. This can be done in various ways. One place to start is the Loeb Center which can provide information about teaching careers at K-12 public schools, independent schools, teaching abroad, and graduate programs in different areas of education.
There are also some nationally-known programs that involve teaching for two to five years after graduation:
* Teach for America: www.teachforamerica.org
* Math for America: www.mathforamerica.org
* Mississippi Teacher Corps: mtc.olemiss.edu
* Southern Teachers Agency: hppt://www.southernteachers.com
* UChicago Secondary Mathematics Teaching Certification program: https://uei.uchicago.edu/news/article/new-secondary-certification-program-mathematics-and-science-focuses-classroom
Our majors interested in these programs are encouraged to learn more about them. Ideally, this should be done early in your senior year. For example, Math for America is an excellent program that requires that you take the ETS Praxis exam, which needs to be done before January 15.
If you are thinking about one of these programs, we recommend that you check out these sites by the beginning of the Fall semester of your senior year.
To read comments from previous mathematics majors and their teaching experiences after Amherst, please check out our new Teaching Comments page.
Teaching as a Job Component
Here is a company that does online classes and related things aimed at bright math students: