Macken­zie Wisne­s­ki is a TESOL (Teach­ing Eng­lish to Speak­ers of Oth­er Lan­guages) and Span­ish Teach­ing major. She attends the Uni­ver­si­ty of North­ern Iowa and is expect­ed to grad­u­ate in May of 2023.

What is the most inter­est­ing thing you have done or are plan­ning to do to explore or gain expe­ri­ence in your career field?

The most inter­est­ing thing I have done in prepa­ra­tion for teach­ing is become a sub­sti­tute teacher. There was so great a need for sub­sti­tute teach­ers dur­ing the 2020 – 2021 school year that an adden­dum was made to the ini­tial require­ments for sub­sti­tutes, chang­ing the min­i­mum age from 21 to 20 years old. I was for­tu­nate enough to begin sub­bing right after I turned 20, and because of that, I have already accu­mu­lat­ed more expe­ri­ence in schools than most pre-ser­vice teachers. 

How are you shar­ing your time and/​or tal­ents with oth­ers now? How do you hope to do so in the future? 

I spend much of my time out­side of class work­ing with stu­dents. I sub­sti­tute teach for two school dis­tricts, tutor col­le­giate ath­letes at UNI, and tutor high school stu­dents in the Cedar Val­ley area through UNI Clas­sic Upward Bound. I hope to con­tin­ue these posi­tions through­out the upcom­ing year, and I am explor­ing addi­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties to par­tic­i­pate in men­tor­ship and teach­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties involv­ing robot­ics and art. 

What has been your biggest chal­lenge since start­ing college?

My biggest chal­lenge in col­lege has been say­ing ​“no.” When I arrived on cam­pus, it was so easy to be charmed by the amaz­ing peo­ple and end­less oppor­tu­ni­ties. How­ev­er, I learned that it is impor­tant to find a bal­ance between per­son­al care and involve­ment. I strug­gled with this my first few years at UNI, but I now remind myself that there will always be oppor­tu­ni­ties for aca­d­e­m­ic and career devel­op­ment – I don’t need to take them all on at once!

What’s the best food on campus?

Piazza’s cere­al selec­tion is supe­ri­or, but Rialto’s boss bowls cure all. Tru­ly, the best food on cam­pus is what­ev­er is clos­est at the end of a long day. 

What’s a fun fact we should know about you?

I have mem­o­rized the entire script and chore­og­ra­phy to Teen Beach Movie… it was a weird phase :)