I am an international student in the Ph.D. program and Dr.

Supriya Baily is my academic

supervisor. From the very beginning, she has been guiding me through the program. I achieved

my B.Ed. and M.Ed. degree from the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh. When I think about my

career progression, I always feel like my career goals are influenced by my prior roles and work

experiences in the UNICEF and the British Council in Bangladesh.

 Being an international student, I had different ideas about different specialization of

Education. But studying at Mason gave me the opportunity to see different areas of

specializations closely. Initially, I found myself interested in everything and it was quite

hard for me to narrow that down. I spoke to Dr. Baily and sought her suggestion. She

asked me to think about what I want to be and where I would like to see myself in 10

years' time and gave me an exercise during Summer; This exercise really helped me to

settle and narrow down my interest by talking to professors.

 As she suggested, I collected and followed Dr. Seth Parson’s interview template to talk to

different professors and Ph.D. students at CEHD to understand their research interests in

my professional area. This was quite an experience because I was usually very anxious

about approaching professors having a different cultural background, but this made it

simple and it turned out to be not so scary at the end. I looked up professors’ profile,

research interests and learned so many new things and could fine tune my academic

interest.

 I also looked up on the Ph.D. guidebook which is a great source of information. I spoke

with current and former Ph.D. students to learn about how they did their portfolio. I saw a

couple of portfolios to have an idea so that I can do once I can finalize my Program

Advisory Committee. I will be completing 18 credits this semester.

After looking up most of the areas of specialization and interviewing faculty, Teaching and

Teacher Education (TATE) primarily serves my academic questions and aligns with my career

progression with International Education (IE) as a secondary specialization. Therefore, I would

like to request my transfer as below:

Primary Specialization: Teaching and Teacher Education

Secondary Specialization: International Education

Bangladesh is now seeking advancement and growth in all sectors of development.

Education is the prime factor which can make this process faster. But to meet the educational

challenges of the 21st century, a new approach to educational research and human capital with

more advanced knowledge and skills are required. The stakeholders of Education have realized

that the single most effective step to deal with global educational challenges is to focus on

research, development, and evaluation of teacher education for both preservice teachers and the

continuing professional development of practicing teachers. I have found that the TATE program

at Mason ties my interests about teaching practices, education reform, education policy,

managing innovations in teaching and teacher education while IE as my secondary specialization

will help me to develop the skills needed to be an effective educator in a global society.