My name is Pedro Fernandes, and this is my first semester with CUNY-SPS as well as my first time taking online classes.  

I was born and lived in Portugal until I moved to the U.S. in the spring of 2007. In the summer of 2012 I became an American citizen. Ironically, by December of 2012 my wife, our baby boy and I moved to Brazil where we will be living for the next 2 years. This was actually the biggest reason why I joined SPS and I’m hopeful that when I get back to the U.S. I will be a proud SPS graduate.

Since I was 16 years old I have held several jobs that at first glance might be very disconnected from one another; jobs such as waiter, carpenter, truck driver, translator, soccer coach, warehouse clerk, production manager… there’s more but I will stop here. Regardless of my enjoyment, or lack of it, I learned from each one of them. I do not use the term proud easily but I am very proud of every job I held because all of them combined led me here...

And today I know I want to be a teacher. A teacher of foreign languages and ESL (English as Second Language). I am also working on my soccer coaching career of 13 years now. I hold coaching certifications both in Europe and in the USA. Nevertheless my overall goal concerning my education is to cultivate myself as much as I can and make up for the lost time. 

My philosophy is that knowledge is available for me anywhere and anytime. To learn all I need is to be available too.
To live is to learn and to learn is to live.