Most education majors spend four years working toward their goal of becoming a teacher. Justine Bagasbas is doing it faster as an accelerated student.
On the accelerated track through the education program, she is completing a full course of study and field placements in three years. The path leaves little room for pause, as Bagasbas takes a multitude of courses that quickly add up to 16 to 18 credits, paired with consistent, hands-on teaching experience in middle school classrooms. It is a track that demands efficiency and dedication.
Dean of the School of Education Beth Kobett emphasized the rigor of the workload.
“She’s balancing an internship and a full load of classes, and by full load I mean like 16, 17, 18,” Kobett said. “So, to be able to do both of those things is not for the faint of heart.”
But she’s doing even more, Kobett said.
“She is actually excelling at it. It’s amazing, it’s really inspiring.”
Bagasbas’ accomplishments don’t stop there. She won the Library Research Award for a qualitative case study she wrote in her reading in the content areas class.
For Bagasbas, the path is less of a burden and more of a continuation toward a goal.
“I have always wanted to be a teacher. I can’t exactly pinpoint when I decided I wanted to be a teacher, but I vividly remember when I decided I wanted to teach Social Studies,” Bagasbas wrote.
Her decision dates back to middle school, where engaging teachers shaped her understanding of history.
In her eighth grade U.S. History class, Bagasbas learned about three disciplinary literacy skills: contextualization, corroboration, and sourcing, all of which helped make her high school classes easier and “more engaging.”
“I was able to interact with class activities in an entirely new way,” she wrote. “And because of that, I knew I wanted to help others feel the same way and to get the same enjoyment out of learning about history that I got when I was still a student.”
Now, she is working to recreate that experience for her own students while still completing her education on an accelerated track.
Because Bagasbas entered the program with a large number of credits, her path does not follow the traditional sequence. This has required her to take courses out of order.
Jesse Schneiderman, the Assistant Professor for the School of Education, highlighted Bagasbas’ out-of-sequence experience.
“She took our kind of basic education lesson out of order; she took the second one in the spring of last year and took the first one in the fall of this year,” Schneiderman said. “And in the spring of last year, she was kind of learning stuff for the first time that a lot of her classmates had already learned and so she needed a little bit of extra encouragement just like keep going at it.”
Bagasbas’s challenges did not end there.
“The biggest challenge that I have faced in my journey to become a teacher is classroom management and building relationships with students,” Bagasbas wrote in an email.
Rather than allowing the challenge to slow her down, she addressed it directly.
“I overcame this challenge really by observing my school mentors and finding something that worked with my style of teaching,” she wrote. “My school mentor always encourages me to find my way instead of trying to imitate her way to help me in the right direction.”
This reflects a consistent pattern in Bagasbas’s development: when faced with challenges, she adapts, refines her approach and deepens her understanding. Kobett agreed.
“I think that she is incredibly thoughtful about everything, but she doesn’t assume that she knows everything which is the perfect mix of someone who wants to do their very best all the time,” Kobett said.
Kobett also pointed to how Bagasbas responds to recognition, noting that even as her accomplishments grow, her reaction remains unchanged.
“She always says ‘me?’” Kobett said.
The mix of modesty and determination is also evident to her peers.
“I think she’s very dedicated,” said Autumn White, a first-year middle school studies major, “and I also think that she’s passionate because I hear her talk a lot about her placement.”
Beyond her work ethic, White said Bagasbas’s personality stands out.
“She’s very friendly,” White said. “I’m a freshman and she’s technically a junior so she really doesn’t have to interact with me that much, but she does and I think that speaks a lot to her character so she’s very sweet.”
In their shared classes, White has also seen the initiative that defines Bagasbas’s approach to teaching.
“She’s a leader so she’ll like take that first step and help the teacher out so I think that that speaks to how she will be in the classroom,” White said.
That emphasis on student participation is intentional.
“When students are able to just jump right into the lesson with little guidance and are asking questions to keep the conversation going,” Bagasbas wrote, “that to me is success as a teacher.”
Kobett believes Bagasbas will carry that philosophy into her own classroom, balancing high expectations with strong relationships.
“I think she’ll create a really kind, loving classroom with high expectations,” Kobett said.
Bagasbas is already working toward that balance.
“Since I am only a few years older than my students, it’s hard to build a relationship that isn’t too professional but also isn’t too familiar,” she wrote. “But I found that joking around with the students, giving them tidbits about who I am (just fun facts about who I am and what I like) and asking them questions have really helped with building relationships with them.”
In many ways, the combination of empathy, professionalism, and an accelerated timeline defines her path.
“Getting to know my future students and making an impact, no matter how small, is what excites me the most about my future as an educator,” Bagasbas wrote.
