From Finance to Teaching: Finding a Place to Belong
| by Hannah Sparling
Sarah Emma Alexander was all set up for a high-powered career in finance.
She earned her bachelor’s degree in business economics and got in at a hedge fund, starting as an administrative assistant and moving her way up to management. After five and a half years, she had risen to manager of operations. She was working long hours but making great money. And she was completely, totally burnt out.
She took a step back to examine her life. Is this what I really want? She did some traveling, and that’s when she stumbled across an ad for a TEFL certification, Teaching English as a Foreign Language.
“I was like, ‘Well, that sounds interesting,’” she said.
The shift wasn’t completely out of the blue. Alexander’s mom was a teacher and then a superintendent, so Alexander grew up spending extra time in schools and classrooms. She’d done an internship with an education services board, and she was also a nanny right out of college, so she had experience with children.
The more she thought about teaching, especially teaching abroad, the more it seemed like a perfect fit.
Sarah Emma Alexander found success in the financial world and even went on to work toward her MBA. But it wasn’t until she moved to China and became a teacher that she felt truly fulfilled. This photo shows her with her students during a schoolwide sports day.
Earning Her Professional Certification
Alexander dove right in. She moved to China, where she taught everything from preschool through 12th grade. She eventually became head of the international section at her school and then moved into a vice principal role.
After a few years, China was starting to tighten up on requirements for educators, and while Alexander hadn’t needed a certification up to that point, she thought she might soon.
“I never want to be in a position where I’m worried about what I’m going to do for my job, where I’m going to live, all of those things,” she said. “So, it’s just making sure that I’m always prepared.”
After a few years of teaching in China, Alexander wanted to earn her professional teaching certification. She’s shown here as a vice principal, emceeing her school’s Christmas show.
She started looking around for a teacher preparation program. She considered a few brick-and-mortar schools and a few online options. But when she took a call with a Moreland University admissions rep, she knew she’d found her spot.
“It had been a while since I was in school, and I wanted to have an environment that was supportive,” she said. “Somebody who was willing to take the time to meet with me face-to-face — you know, on the computer, but face-to-face. And Moreland just seemed like a much more caring and supportive environment.”
Alexander enrolled in Moreland’s TEACH-NOW Teacher Preparation Certificate Program in 2023. She graduated in 2024 and earned her professional U.S. teaching certification. Then, she did Moreland’s 3-month M.Ed. Add-On, earning her Master’s in Educational Technology.
Tech Savvy and AI Ready
Initially, Alexander was worried about the format of the TEACH-NOW program since it’s 100% online, and technology does not always come easy to her. But once she started, she found her groove.
“It was like, ‘Wow, this is amazing,’” she said. “I can do these assignments, and I know how to turn them in, and I know exactly what I need to do to get all of the points.”
Alexander had taken online courses at other universities, but Moreland’s system was the easiest to use, she said. The rubrics were clear, and she felt confident as she moved through the modules.
“Why wasn’t it like this when I was getting my bachelor’s?” she said. “Having that support structure [at Moreland] just made it so much easier to figure it out.”
Alexander even came back and did several of Moreland’s professional development courses. One course was on student-centered learning, and she is planning to use several ideas she got from that session in her class this school year. The other course was on artificial intelligence.
“A lot of people have this thing about AI: ‘Oh, we can’t let students use it and it’s cheating,’” she said. “But, you know, they thought the same thing about calculators. Being in an environment of people who wanted to know more about it, who were open to how we can incorporate this, I thought that was really, really nice and really refreshing.”
Lifelong Impact
Sometimes Alexander thinks about the what ifs. What if she’d never moved to China? What if she’d stayed in finance? She’d have more money in her bank account, that’s for sure. But in a lot of other ways, she’d have less.
She wouldn’t have gotten to travel as much and live in different parts of the world. She wouldn’t have the connections she’s made with students, families, and other educators. She wouldn’t have met one of her students in China, a 4-year-old girl who started the year too afraid to talk to anyone and ended the year cracking jokes, speaking English and Chinese, and having other students argue about who got to sit next to her.
During a parent meeting for that student, the girl’s mother told Alexander that the 4-year-old only said “I love you” to two people in the world: No. 1 was her mother, and No. 2 was Alexander.
“I just want you to understand,” the mother said, “that’s how much of an impact you’ve had in her life.”
Alexander finds value in the long-term impact she can have as an educator. Here, she is giving a speech during her school’s graduation ceremony.
Recently, Alexander moved back to the United States, where she’s teaching 10th and 11th grade English as a New Language (ENL) classes in New York and working on a post-graduate certificate in educational leadership. Her dream is to get a job in school administration, maybe even on a U.S. military base. But no matter where she ends up, her ultimate goal is the same: to help teachers, to help students, and to create a safe, welcoming space where everyone can learn and grow.
“In my classroom, this is a safe place, and you belong here,” she said. “It doesn’t matter where you’re coming from, this is the place that you belong.”
The same is true for Alexander. In the classroom? That’s where she belongs.
Earn your professional teaching certification in as little as 9 months with Moreland University. Our TEACH-NOW program is fully online, with rolling admissions and monthly start dates.
After the 9-month program, you have the option to add on a master’s degree in just 3 additional months.