Heidy Garibay

My name is Heidy Garibay. I am a bilingual elementary school teacher, graduate student at SSU and a first generation college student. I’ve been a part of SSU since my undergraduate years. I started at SSU as a freshman in the fall of 2012. I was part of the hutchins school blended track. The blended track is designed for students who want to become teachers. In the blended track you work on your BA and a multiple- subject teaching credential all in 4 years. Once I graduated with my BA and credential, I started teaching. I am currently in my third year as a teacher in a Spanish dual-immersion school in Sonoma. I couldn’t stay far away from SSU, and decided to go back in order to pursue my MA in education.

I am currently involved in teaching! I am incredibly passionate about my career, and I have Sonoma State to thank for that. My original plan wasn’t to become a teacher. I knew I wanted to work with kids but teaching wasn’t on my list until I took a tour of SSU and learned about the Hutchins blended program. I also did my student teaching through SSU. I was incredibly interested in bilingual education, but at the time SSU didn’t offer a bilingual education. I voiced my interest in this and so did a few others. We were incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to student teach at dual- immersion schools, and have an amazing supervisor that supported us. Fast forward a few years and I am still deeply involved in the education field. I decided to go back to school to SSU in order to better my practice and continue growing as an educator. I plan on bringing back what I learn into my school community so we can all grow together.

The biggest challenge I faced while at SSU has always been balancing academics and work. From the time I was an undergrad and credential student, I was taking heavy unit loads. I was taking 18-19 units per semester, plus I had a full time job. When I started the credential program, I was also student teaching in addition to everything else. Now that I am in the Master’s program I am teaching full time and going to school. This has been hard to manage but not impossible. This has also helped me become a better student and a better teacher.

I’ve had several positive experiences at SSU, but the most significant has been finding something I am deeply passionate about. SSU has opened many doors for me and that includes teaching. I love being a teacher and having the opportunity to work with students every day. Being able to help students become bilingual is something extremely meaningful to me. While at SSU I had the opportunity of working alongside wonderful people and learning more about dual- immersion education. I continue to learn more about this field every day at work and in the MA program.