Adriana Cella is a member of Marist's M.A. in Educational Psychology Class of 2015. She holds a BA in Psychology from Marist and is employed by PS 178 in Jamaica Estates, Queens. She is 4th-grade special education teacher in an ICT (Integrated co-taught) classroom. 

What are your career goals?  
My career goals are to inspire students to be the best they can be and to follow their passions.  I am so grateful for my first teaching position right now, and I hope that as the years pass, I can meet my career goal.  Although I love being a 4th-grade teacher, in the future I would like to become a special education director of a school, or possible an administrative position.  

Why did you choose to pursue your degree at Marist? 
I chose to pursue my degree at Marist for two reasons.  First, Marist offers the opportunity to become dual certified in both elementary education and special education.  This appealed to me since I was interested in both.  Second, Marist offered the 5-year program where I could obtain my masters in Educational Psychology in only one extra year after my undergraduate degree.

Tell us about a project or course that was particularly meaningful to your professional development. 
A project very meaningful was in my reading 3 placement where we had to work with a real student once a week for the whole semester.  We had to create a goal for this student, and then work with them for 30 minutes every week to try to meet this reading goal.  Although this was challenging, it was very rewarding seeing all of our hard work planning lessons for our student pay off!

How has a degree from Marist and your course work enhanced your career? 
I feel very prepared in my current teaching position thanks to everything I have learned and experienced at Marist!  I feel confident with the teaching pedagogy and teaching experience that Marist allowed me to obtain.

What advice would you give to a student considering pursuing their master’s degree at Marist? 
I would tell them to make the most of it like I did.  While obtaining my masters I also substitute taught during the day.  Although it was a lot of work, it gave me great experience, and I was able to practice the skills I was learning in my courses in real life situations.  I would also tell them that they should plan on devoting a lot of time to their studies so they do not feel stressed towards the end of the semester.