Vantaggi
The people you work with - very hard working, dedicating, innovative folks. I am continually learning from my colleagues, many of whom have become very close friends. I feel extremely comfortable sharing my opinion and I know that I am heard. I feel valued. I have many opportunities for professional development and am often given praise and feedback to ensure that I am continually growing. I work with my manager to pick out several things that I want to professionally develop (she will agree that they are beneficial to me, my job, and the direction that I want to go in the future) and we work on those 2 or 3 things for 6 months. After that, we look at progress and establish a new professional development plan at that point. In my experience, there has been many opportunities for me to explore my interests across teams: I worked on the recruitment team for 2 years and then wanted a change of pace and now work on the teacher preparation team.
Svantaggi
Sometimes Teach For America can be too focused on work and not enough on personal goals. We're working very hard to ensure personal and professional alignment, but I think it's the area where we lag the most. Often, deadlines and work loads are determined by the individual because if that individual spoke with his/her manager about being overwhelmed, his/her manager would help to prioritize the work load.