Are you a career changer with a bachelor’s degree interested in early childhood or elementary teaching?
New Paltz offers two options for prospective teachers who already hold a bachelor’s degree:
- A second bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood & Childhood Education (birth-grade 6)
- A Master of Science in Teaching degree that leads to initial certification in Childhood Education (grades 1-6), and can be extended to include Early Childhood (birth-grade 2).
Note that in New York, initial certification is for five years; in order to obtain professional certification after that point, teachers must earn a master’s degree.
The New Paltz bachelor’s degree program includes a 30-credit academic concentration in one of 11 liberal arts disciplines, and the master’s program has an admission requirement of 30 undergraduate credits in one of those same disciplines: art history, biology, black studies, earth science, English, French, geography, history, mathematics, political science, or Spanish.
Both the bachelors and masters programs require a 3.0 or better GPA for admission, include once-a-week daytime fieldwork placements over multiple semesters, and a full-time student teaching experience the final semester in order to graduate.
Advantages of the undergraduate program:
- More choices of mostly daytime classes
- The option to save the required master’s degree for a more specialized field, such as Special Education, Literacy, or TESOL
- Students are matriculated (enrolled in a degree program) throughout their coursework, which can have positive implications for financial aid
Advantages of the graduate program:
- Evening, online, and summer course offerings
- A cohort of more mature fellow students
- Being able to earn your teaching certificate and master’s degree all in one
- A student may complete prerequisite liberal arts undergraduate credits as a non-matriculated student through another institution
For Application Information:
Second bachelor’s degree: Undergraduate Admission
Master of Science in Teaching: Graduate Admission
