Wendy Kopp

There were definitely teachers who made a huge impact. I think about a woman whose name was Mrs. Fish who was my seventh grade English Language Arts teacher. What I remember about her was just how hard she pushed. I thought I was a perfectly strong student at this point, but she just pushed everyone to their limits. That was very instrumental for me. In fact, all the teachers I remember had that same thing: they just had such high expectations and wouldn’t stop pushing. I think she just conveyed the idea that good wasn’t good enough, and I think the skill development and critical thinking skills that that year developed were also instrumental. But I also think, I don’t know, there’s something about that year that probably instilled within me that ethic that you just have to keep pushing to get better and better, and that if you work hard enough it will pay off.

I applied to one firm in every sector. This was the most half-hearted job search. “I’ll apply for that management consulting firm and this investment bank…” and I applied for five jobs altogether, because my heart wasn’t in it. And thankfully… I’m so glad I didn’t get any of those big jobs! Because that made this decision easier.

The Fountainhead , I think, pretty much saved me in the initial years of Teach For America. I loved that book, but I’m not sure books were the seminal thing that guided my path. ... I think it was sort of about “the creator against the world,” and I was probably feeling at that point that I was up against lots of boulders, to pull off the big idea of Teach For America.

And the most fulfilled, centered, grounded, happy people I know are people who made the choice to be part of an effort to actually make the world a better place. ... I would say, to me, the path of least regrets is to at least make a short-term commitment to say, “Let me work to make a real difference in the world.” The worst that could happen is you decide to move into something else later, but you’ll always take with you what you’ve given and what you’ve gained through that experience.