When Jeremy Quach, '18, STEP '19, reached his senior year of high school, he was shocked to realize that most of his friends didn’t plan to go to college. "I knew that they were really smart and intelligent people, but they didn’t get the same support that I got from teachers." He tried his best to arrange visits to local community colleges and get them interested in pursuing further education, but in the end realized he was just a friend to them, and they needed a teacher. Now, Quach will be that teacher for students at Jones College Prep in Chicago, where he'll begin his career teaching high school English after graduating from the Stanford Teacher Education Program. He says he feels ready after the past year in STEP, which included six months of teaching on his own in his classroom placement.

Quach solidified his interest in teaching while an undergraduate at Stanford, where he majored in philosophy and earned an honors in education. "I used to have to hype myself up before teaching each day, but now I feel much less nervous and more prepared." Now that he has graduated, he still expects to keep in contact with his STEP cohort. "There are so many people I’m going to call late at night and be like, 'I have to teach this thing tomorrow – help me out with this.' Having them as a resource has been incredible."