Despite being a first-year teacher, Andrea Terrero will be walking into her classroom this fall with a lot of experience.

Terrero will be teaching English to adults with special needs in Brazil, an opportunity that came about after she visited the country as part of a federal exchange program.

Her Temple experience has taught her that nothing is impossible if you’re willing to work, and work hard, at it.

“I worked three part-time jobs while I was a student here,” Terrero said. “I worked in the [Student Activities Center], the College of Education’s Student Resource Center and the Office of Multicultural Affairs. I’m accustomed to working hard. I started out being home schooled, so I’m disciplined.”

Terrero, a secondary education/Spanish major, is graduating from the College of Education. She began her Temple career after graduating from Lawrence High School in Trenton, New Jersey, where she was active in Student Government and Temple Gospel Ministries.

In 2007, she was selected to go to Brazil to study special education and teach adults with special needs as part of the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education/Coordenacao de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior’s exchange program (FIPSE-CAPES).

While she had initially resisted the pull of teaching (she was a Spanish Education major, but started to have second thoughts in her sophomore and junior years), the program was among the things that helped her decide to join what is actually the Terrero family business, she said.

“My parents are both teachers,” she said. “My grandmother and great-grandmother were teachers as well. So it’s a legacy. It’s the grace of God.”

After a co-teaching stint at the School District of Philadelphia’s Edison High School, Terrero begins life in her own classroom at the Kensington Creative and Performing Arts High School. Because it is a school for artists, dancers and the like, she’s hoping to be able to use that vibe in her classroom, she said.

“I think that I’ll be able to teach not just the Spanish language, but also the arts and culture at CAPA,” she said. “I’m excited about that. I like the freedom.”