Derek Boudreau of Fort Fairfield took some unexpected turns to arrive at where he is today. Now in his second year of teaching fifth- and sixth-grade English at SAD 42 in Mars Hill, he wasn’t always sure of his career path, but gained great friendships and community connections on the way.
After he graduated from Fort Fairfield High School in 2005, Boudreau attended Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He had wanted to see places outside of Maine and broaden his perspective. But that same year, Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana and the state evacuated LSU, so he decided to come home and put college on hold until he figured out his next move.
Boudreau worked at several places, including Burrelle’s Information Services and Video Monitoring Services in Presque Isle. At VMS, he monitored media reports and wrote abstracts for clients. He realized he enjoyed writing, but knew there were not many opportunities to use those skills in a job. In 2011, VMS closed and Boudreau enrolled at UMPI as an elementary education major.
“When I filled in my application to enroll, I was asked, ‘What do you want your major to be?’ I hadn’t thought about it at all and ‘elementary education’ was the first thing that I said. I don’t know why, but I’m happy that I did,” Boudreau said.
Going back to college as a non-traditional student gave Boudreau a better understanding of how much his education would benefit him. He had been in the workforce long enough to know about the challenges of finding a job without a college degree. While at UMPI, he formed close friendships with his fellow education majors and became a member of UMPI’s chapter of the Student Education Association of Maine, a writing center tutor and a drop-in English tutor for Student Support Services.
“I think I learned more from helping other people revise their essays than I did from writing my own,” he said. “I really liked helping people express their own ideas and thoughts. It gave me a critical eye that I could turn onto my own work.”
At the end of his junior year, Boudreau changed his major from elementary education to English with a minor in educational studies. He took literature, creative writing and film studies, but remained involved with education-related organizations such as SEAM and the writing center.
Boudreau graduated in 2015 and took a job as an English tutor for UMPI’s Upward Bound summer residential program. He worked with high school students who, like himself, would become the first people in their families to attend college. Boudreau has continued to work for Upward Bound every summer since then. In 2016 he was the residential director and this past summer he helped teach a journalism course with another local teacher. He also served as an on-call English tutor during the 2016-2017 school year.
He has found working with Upward Bound students among his most rewarding experiences. Like many of the students, he did not know what he wanted to do after graduating from high school. For a while after going to LSU, he assumed that having a job would be enough. But college allowed him to get where he is today and he wants other students to know that they have what it takes to succeed.
“I try to push them to set goals that are really high and chase them down,” Boudreau said. “I can say, ‘I was there. I did it and you could do it too.’ I get to help them see themselves as people who could succeed rather than people who would never have the chance.”
Boudreau enjoys teaching fifth- and sixth-grade students the critical thinking and writing skills that they’ll need no matter what careers they pursue. The best part has been watching students discover who they want to become, even if they don’t know exactly how they’ll get there.
“Something I tell the kids a lot is, ‘It’s okay if you don’t know what you want to be when you grow up, because I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.’ It’s funny because they think I’m joking,” Boudreau said.
