Turning to Teaching an ‘Amazing Opportunity’ for New Sandburg Instructor Seifert
Aaron Frey
Friday, April 9, 2021 3:17 PM
Campus News
Galesburg, IL
Teaching was something Josh Seifert had planned to do at some point in his professional career. He just didn’t expect it to be at age 32.
“I had a professor at my alma mater, Culver-Stockton College, Jim Cosgrove, who inspired and encouraged me. I thought I’d love to do the same for others someday. Work for 20, 30 years in the corporate world and then start teaching,” Seifert said. “But my career jumped 25 years ahead, and I couldn’t be happier it did.”
Before coming to Carl Sandburg College last summer as a business and economics instructor, Seifert spent nearly a decade in the private sector. He worked his way up the corporate ladder at his last stop, Burger King, at one point overseeing the marketing and brand initiatives for more than 1,500 restaurants throughout the Midwest. Then the fast-food chain presented him with the chance to move into a new role at its corporate headquarters in Miami. The offer came with plenty of financial opportunity, not to mention the appeal of living in a warm-weather city by the ocean. But it also meant longer days, more travel and he and his wife moving away from their roots in Illinois as they planned to start a family.
“Most people on my career path would have taken that job in Miami,” Seifert said. “We just decided that wasn’t the life we wanted to live.”
That set in motion the chain of events that led Seifert to Sandburg. After leaving Burger King, Seifert turned to teaching and was hired as a marketing and business professor at MacMurray College in his hometown of Jacksonville.
“That changed my career path,” Seifert said. “I loved it. Absolutely loved it.”
RELATED: Read this story and more in the 2021 edition of "Sandburg"
But when MacMurray closed at the end of the 2019-20 school year because of financial concerns, Seifert was left looking for another job. He found a faculty opening at Sandburg, and as a bonus it was close to the family of his wife Ashley, who grew up in Cameron and graduated from United High School. Seifert was offered the position last June, and six weeks later they had moved to Knox County.
“It’s been a whirlwind, but I get to keep doing something that I truly enjoy,” Seifert said. “I’ve had some jobs I didn’t necessarily love, that I had taken because it was going to move my career path forward. Now I’m not just proud of what I do, I’m also happy. Who could ask for more than that?”
One of Seifert’s favorite parts from his experience in the private sector was coaching and developing young professionals. He got satisfaction from seeing employees fresh from college who were full of work ethic and untapped potential turn into excellent employees and eventually great leaders. Teaching, he said, shares many of those same qualities.
“That was something that I found out really early on that I loved, and that’s what I get to do here,” Seifert said. “I get to train and develop the students here, and I think that’s an amazing opportunity.”
In addition to explaining the ins and outs of the business world, Seifert challenges his students to understand why what they’re learning is important and to develop a methodology to their problem-solving. He also likes to share his personal experiences in the workforce and relate them to what his students are learning during the course of the semester.
“I’ve experienced many things in my career, so when I get into the classroom, those are the things I talk about,” Seifert said. “They’re things that have helped me find success in life, that will hopefully help them find success as well.”
