Deciding on a Field of Study

Whatever your particular motive for choosing the teaching profession, you need to bear in mind the state of the job market in deciding on a field of study. Nationally, it is predicted that there will be a robust job market in education over the next decade due to a combination of demographic factors, including the retirement of many teachers and the growing number of children moving through the nation's schools. However, many of these will be in rural and urban schools, and there is more demand for teachers in specific fields and age levels.

The Long Island job market is competitive. Across the region there are more openings in mathematics, the natural sciences, foreign languages (especially Spanish), and TESOL than there are in social studies and English, where the number of applicants exceeds the number of available positions. In contrast, in the New York City schools there is a shortage of teachers in most areas. 

There is a reasonable expectation that students who complete the teacher education program at Stony Brook University, which is one of the best universities in the region, will be able to find a job in their field.