The classroom is where Tatiana Amaya ’23 has always found her passion and her purpose.
As the recent Claremont McKenna graduate settles into life after college, Amaya is pursuing her Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) at American University in Washington, D.C., while simultaneously earning classroom experience and teacher certification through a residency with the Urban Teachers program.
Although she’s training to become a teacher, Amaya’s ultimate goal is a career in education policy, a path she’s purposefully been forging since she was in high school.
“It was crucial that I have years of experience in the classroom before going into education as a policy field, because my belief is that before you enter any policy field, you need to know what's happening on the ground,” she said.
Amaya’s own public school education growing up in Philadelphia has deeply inspired her — from her beloved second-grade teacher, whom she calls “godmother,” to the choir, theater, and step classes she took after school.
“Education has always acted as a tool, a resource for me to learn and to expand the knowledge that I have outside of my community of where I grew up,” she said. “I think education has always been my way out. Understanding the role that education played in my life, I think was—and is—crucial for my decision to go into urban education because I know the impact that education has on urban children, and seeing the impact that a teacher can have has definitely provided a lot of motivation.”
As a high school student, Amaya was committed to creating impactful policy, elected to leadership roles as Philadelphia Youth Commissioner, and as a member of the Philadelphia School District’s Superintendent Advisory Board.
Recognizing her passion and talent, Amaya’s high school counselor encouraged her to apply to Claremont McKenna because of the College’s emphasis on politics, government, and economics. Following his advice, she applied to CMC and was accepted. Before committing, she joined the spring fly-in preview program hosted by CMC’s Office of Admission to visit campus. That’s when she realized CMC was the place for her.
But it wasn’t until after Amaya arrived for her first year, and became “more rooted,” that she truly appreciated what CMC offers — the small class sizes, as well as the resources and support offered by the Soll Center for Student Opportunity, the Dean of Students office, the Center for Global Education (Amaya studied abroad in Denmark), and the CARE Center, which was a pivotal component in creating a space where Amaya felt she could thrive and take on leadership roles.
At CMC, she served as the president of the College’s Black Women’s Collective, 1Gen’s Social Committee Lead, a Diversity and Inclusion Board committee member, a Kravis Lab mentor and assistant manager, and the co-founder of The Civil Rights Task Force.
It was Amaya’s time spent as a CARE Fellow that she describes as her way to “give back.”
“I could engage in dialogue, and I met other students in the CARE Center who had shared similar experiences,” she explained, noting that she also led events such as, “Loving My Body,” a discussion series focused on diet culture and eating disorders.
It’s this notion of “giving back” that propels Amaya. “If it hadn’t been for my CMC professors and my educators, I probably wouldn't be where I am today. The idea of giving back what was given to me in the classroom is what I stand by, and what has guided my decision to stay in education.”