Nihat’s Story

I enjoyed my learning experience at UT very much. There are some things that any graduate student can read and learn on their own, but being an ‘apprentice’ and learning from faculty who do cutting-edge research is a different experience. It’s just wonderful when the professors not only know each other’s expertise very well, but are also aware of research opportunities across the campus and are able to guide students to make the best use of available resources. For instance, I was able to receive superb individualized help from the Division of Statistics and Scientific Computation on my personal research projects. Also, the number of courses and seminars that I could take both within the C&I department and across campus was just amazing. Students can take classes from numerous programs in the College of Education (e.g., Educational Psychology) as well as from other colleges and department like Linguistics, French and Italian, Germanic Studies, and so forth. In addition, people living in the great city of Austin have a lot of respect for UT and its graduates, so school districts would gladly let us in their classrooms for teaching and research.

Undoubtedly, receiving a degree from a college (UT’s College of Education) ranked top 3 in the nation also says a lot about the perceived value a UT education. All of these resources and opportunities, including the dispositions and knowledge and skills I acquired in the C&I department, gave me access to certain research and teaching qualities that helped me receive multiple job offers when I completed my degree. The quality of my education continued to enhance my career. Since graduating I have published numerous articles in top-tier journals while also consistently receiving very high teaching evaluations from my students at Duquesne University. Indeed, my fantastic and supportive colleagues at the School of Education at Duquesne just awarded me with “The 2012 Early Career Faculty Award for Excellence in Scholarship”, for which I am very grateful.

Why UT?

The UT brand and faculty were the two main sources of motivation for me when I applied to the FLE program, specifically worldly renowned scholars like Elaine Horwitz and Diane Schallert. I was primarily interested in studying epistemological and pedagogical belief systems and motivation. The faculty resources in the department made it an easy decision for me to make.

Life After UT

Currently, I serve as the program director and graduate advisor in the ESL Teacher Certification and Master’s Program at Duquesne University. For more information, please visit our website.