Vantaggi
(This review only describes the Pre-Service training to Placement experience.) This is the fastest, cheapest route to being in a classroom and getting certified, and you will make amazing friends in your cohort. While the summer training may seem unnecessarily cruel, every part of it reflects something of the reality you will encounter as an inner-city teacher. My placement feels like a breeze after making it through PST.
Svantaggi
The summer training was the worst and most intense 8 weeks of my life, there was a huge variation in quality and style between the different school sites and coaches, and a lot of my friends quit or got cut (even on the last day). Honestly, if I had known what percentage of my fellows would quit or get cut, I probably wouldn't have done the program. But now I have passed and I am happy -- so just consider the following: - Can you be miserable, sleep-deprived and depressed for 8 weeks... and still get to the school at 7 am, play nice with the staffers, and have a smile painted on by the time the kids arrive? - Can you graciously take tons of advice from different people and apply it towards mechanically passing a rubric that at times feels very arbitrary or even wrong? In the end, it's only 8 weeks, and those two factors were the major deciding factors (at least at my site) for who quit/got cut and who made it.