The Scenic Route to the Classroom
After 20 years in corporate marketing, Laurel Struck found her true calling in teaching
The first thing you notice isn’t the microscopes or the beakers; it’s the LEGO sign.
Hanging above a classroom door at Shepherd Middle School is a layered sign made completely of LEGO bricks that reads: “The Nebula Classroom.” Inside, another sign declares, “Mission Control: Guiding Students on the Mission to Endless and Vast Possibilities.”
Laurel Struck, who is the heart behind the mission, proves that it’s never too late to find the career you were always meant to have.
When it comes to becoming a teacher, Laurel took the scenic route. Long before she introduced students to chemical reactions and coding, she was building marketing campaigns, serving as a graphic designer and leading teams in the corporate world. Over two decades, she worked in industries ranging from finance and healthcare to sports medicine and athletics, climbing from graphic designer to marketing director.
“Working for 20 years in the corporate world allowed me to live and experience the world from a different perspective,” Laurel says. “I’m grateful for that experience because I believe it made me a better teacher.”
Ironically, teaching had always been part of the plan. Laurel originally intended to become an art teacher, attending Montana State University and earning undergraduate degrees in both art education and graphic design. When teaching positions proved scarce after graduation, her graphic design degree opened another door, launching a successful career she never expected. Still, teaching never completely left her heart.
The turning point came during the COVID-19 pandemic. Helping her daughters navigate remote learning awakened something she hadn’t realized she’d been missing.
“My oldest child was still recovering from a recent medical diagnosis and was immunocompromised. My youngest was a third-grader, and I didn’t want her to fall behind in her development of language arts and math skills,” Laurel says. “I quickly realized how much I love teaching. It was so much more rewarding than what I had been doing.”
She enrolled in a Master of Arts in teaching program and became a full-time graduate student, completing the entire program in one year.
Laurel is glad she waited until later in life to become a teacher.
“I’m more open-minded, and want to focus on things that will make my students successful long-term,” she says. “I get to utilize all the business and marketing skills I learned along the way, and so for my students, each lesson essentially becomes an advertisement, part of a larger campaign.”
Ask Laurel about her favorite part of teaching and she doesn’t mention test scores or textbooks. She talks about “wins.”
“Every day, a student makes me feel like I’m an important person in their life, making this the most rewarding job I’ve ever had,” Laurel says. “The best part is when a student who once thought that they didn’t like science discovers it’s their new passion.”
She focuses on the small, everyday moments that make each day worthwhile, even recording them in a daily journal that she loves to share with her husband and daughters. She documents moments, like a student finally understanding a difficult concept or a former student stopping by just to say hello.
For Laurel, education has never been just about science. It’s about relationships. Students know she expects effort, curiosity and respect. In return, she offers honesty, encouragement and a classroom where every question is welcome. In the syllabus she hands to every student, Laurel states: “My personal philosophy as an educator is to prepare students for the world they are going into and help guide them to finding what brings them passion in their learning.”
Earlier this year, her creativity reached beyond the classroom when she competed in the America’s Favorite Teacher contest. While Laurel didn’t take home the national title, the experience pushed her outside her comfort zone. She finished third in her semifinals group and feels that the competition helped her grow both personally and professionally.
She recalls a moment at home with her husband where they both recognized the time and commitment it was going to take.
“I had that feeling I hadn’t really had since my marketing days, and decided I was all in,” she says. “I dusted off my skills, learned some new technology, and my family and I brainstormed ideas for content creation. Every night I worked on scripts and recorded and posted videos. Every morning I got to school early to create additional content to submit.”
The competition helped Laurel become more confident using new technology to create instruction videos for students who were absent, videos for a substitute teacher to play in her absence, and additional instructional videos for some of the harder topics in class. Although she did not win the grand prize ($25,000 and a visit from Bill Nye the Science Guy), she says, “The experiences and skills I developed can’t be taken away from me, but rather have made me a stronger and more adaptable teacher.”
As she heads into a brand-new school year, Laurel points to the school and community of Shepherd as major supporters of not only her experience in the competition, but in her teaching career as a whole.
“A small town has a close-knit community that will always support all aspects of their community, including the schools,” she says. Although she has worked in larger cities and corporate environments, Shepherd has captured her heart. Championship teams return home to parades, and school plays sell out. Neighbors come out to support sporting events, even when they don’t have a student on the field. That support extends as well to the community’s educators. Students know they’re surrounded by adults who genuinely care about their success. For Laurel, it’s exactly the type of environment where learning can flourish.
“It’s a really amazing thing to witness and brag about to my Billings friends!” she says.
At an age when many professionals are comfortably settled in their careers, Laurel Struck did something remarkably brave. She started over. She often says she didn’t become a teacher despite her previous career. She became a teacher because of it. Standing in The Nebula Classroom, surrounded by curious middle school students eager to explore the world through science, it’s hard to imagine her anywhere else. Her path to education may not have been straight, and it may not have been quick, but then again, the most meaningful journeys rarely are.
Every morning, as another group of students walk through her classroom door, she reminds them of something she herself has learned. The most extraordinary discoveries often begin with a single question — and the courage to follow where it leads.
