From Bank of America to Teach for America: Dr. Kaitlin Anderson’s Journey to Lehigh

Although she’s spent most of her professional life focused on education, Dr. Kaitlin Anderson’s left college in 2009 with a degree in commerce and economics and headed for a job with Bank of America.

But after three years as a senior financial analyst, she realized it wasn’t working.

“I enjoyed a lot of the analytical aspects of my job in finance, and there were certainly things about that that I liked,” Anderson says. “But I always kind of felt like something was missing, in terms of giving back to the community, or feeling like I was doing something that was really valuable.”

She wound up working with Teach for America, teaching high school math in Fordyce, Arkansas. Anderson hadn’t seen herself in this position but wound up loving the experience.

It was a great way to learn about the educational system, but also an eye-opening experience. Anderson began thinking about the policies that make it difficult to provide a quality education, particularly in the types of places Teach for America tends to serve.

Looking back, she can’t point to a single moment that made her say “I need to investigate where inequality comes from.”