What Students Really Say About Farmington


Why should somebody come to Farmington to be an Early Childhood Education major?
The hands-on experience and all the help anyone could need are right here. If you’re struggling they can help you out so much and if you are uncomfortable with infants and toddlers, you will get comfortable. The positive outlook everybody has in the major is fantastic. We’re dealing with children all day, so we’re playing and learning and exploring and discovering and it’s invigorating to know that everybody is so enthusiastic about working with young children. I just love it!

Age-wise, what is does “Early Childhood” mean?
“Early Childhood” refers to “before Kindergarten.” I actually will not be certified to teach anything above kindergarten. I’m taking an infant and toddler practicum right now — I love it! I see the interaction between young children and their parents and how different bonds form. Some toddlers are very attached to their parents, others not as much, so it’s interesting to me to see the different kinds of family interactions and how that shows in the independence of the children.

Have you enjoyed the program so far?
I love it! The professors are amazing. They know so much about child development. They have all had hands-on experience — years and years of it. Listening to their stories of embarrassment, awkwardness, of good times, not so good times … it’s great to know that the knowledge is coming from their experience and not just from a textbook.

Do you have a favorite class?
It’s Families and Childcare Providers. It was a class with an intellectual base rather than, “read this and do the reflection in the book and we’ll talk about it.” The class was more focused on reading the material so you’d have the base-line knowledge. And from there, you’d be able to discuss the material in class, and the discussion took shape depending on who was in class that day. You learned a lot about yourself, a lot about others and a lot about what we actually learned about.

What did you discuss?
We discussed the demographics of how this world and childcare is evolving, hopefully into something better. Childcare has been looked at as daycare, but it’s not daycare — we’re not taking care of the day, we’re taking care of children! It’s so much more than that.

We also looked at the demographics of women going back to work. A lot of people stay in school longer and start families later in life and that seems to bring on a whole different set of issues. Sometimes these older mothers may feel like they’re too old to actively play with their children. We talked about the variety of childcare centers and types of care: nursery school, preschool, at-home childcare, nannies, and we discussed them in depth. I enjoyed that because it broadened my horizon in thinking about what career paths I might actually take.

What has been your biggest challenge so far?
The biggest challenge for me, personally, has been the fact that I know I don’t want to be a teacher. I want to have something to do with children and be around children a lot, but not be with them the whole eight hours.

I’m more of an advocate for children’s health — making sure they have healthy home situations, childcare situations, making sure they are developing as they should be. That has been my biggest challenge, figuring where I want to go.

Has UMF been helpful?
They have been so helpful. The classes offered me different opportunities to see what I wanted to do. One of the classes involved helping the childcare center get organized and see what they needed to do to get licensed. I saw the business aspect of it and took on a Business minor here because I found that was what I liked to do.

I also loved both my practicums: one as a care provider, and the other at the Pre-K program — both on-campus, I might add. So you get a wide variety. I’m involved in a Parent Co-op Group on campus, and I like interacting with the families.

Will you do student teaching?
The Early Childhood Education program has an internship, instead.

What brought you to Farmington?
I’ve loved children ever since I was little. UMF was my first and only choice. I didn’t apply anywhere else and I did Early Acceptance, too. I visited the campus the summer before my senior year and I loved it. I had a couple of relatives who went to college here and they loved it — my grandmother went to school here when it was called The Farmington Normal School. It’s interesting to listen to her stories about what UMF was like back in then.

Did you come in with this major?
I did. I really enjoy younger children and I knew from volunteering in Oxford that I didn’t want to be in the public school system — so many standardized tests and all. So I decided to go for Early Childhood Ed. and when I had my first Classroom Observation class, I realized it was exactly what I wanted to do.

What does UMF do really well?
The professors here get to know you really well will go out of their way to help you. For instance, one day after my Chemistry class, I went to my professor and said, “Look, I don’t know if it’s the way you’re teaching it or the way I'm interpreting it, but I am just not getting it.” As so he explained the lab to me again but he could see I still wasn’t understanding. Just then another Chemistry professor overheard our conversation and she came right in and explained it to me in a slightly different way and … amazingly, I understood right away! I love that here — it’s all about the students!