Truthfully, working in academia just recently became a passion of mine. Originally, I went into my undergraduate career intending to work as a video game developer; however, as I spent more time in the field of computer science, I began questioning this career choice. Particularly, during my sophomore year, one course exposed me to the lifestyle of a video game developer. Ultimately, I realized I did not enjoy this lifestyle or work environment. As a result, I began questioning what I wanted to do in life. More importantly, I wanted to find a career I will enjoy for years to come. Concurrently, I started working as a classroom learning assistant (CLA) for undergraduate computer science courses, which provided me with a necessary exposure
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Unfortunately, due to a personal health issue, I chose to give up the position after just a few weeks of work in order to allow the school to permanently fill the position – I knew my medical obligations would conflict with the position for several months. Later, knowing I was distraught by giving up the job, one of my professors helped me find work as a private tutor for programming and mathematics. I spent most of my spring semester and summer tutoring kids in Scratch and JavaScript until I needed to move for grad …show more content…
Having now spent some time as a PhD student with both research and teaching obligations, I realize that computer science focuses much more on research than teaching. Further, while I work as a teaching assistant for the department, the TA experience fails to match the expectations my undergraduate advisers gave me. Going into the program, I assumed, as it occurs in mathematics, that my position would require me to actually teach an entire course. This is not the case. Unfortunately, the TA position serves more as a grading assistantship - although, this is an obligation I find enjoyable. Thankfully, having expressed my interest in academia, my TA adviser provided me with the opportunity to work on tasks other than grading, such as assisting with creating assignments, writing homework solutions and test cases, and assisting in developing a grading script for programming homeworks. While I am grateful for the opportunity, I realize that I want to be in a position where I possess teaching
Unfortunately, due to a personal health issue, I chose to give up the position after just a few weeks of work in order to allow the school to permanently fill the position – I knew my medical obligations would conflict with the position for several months. Later, knowing I was distraught by giving up the job, one of my professors helped me find work as a private tutor for programming and mathematics. I spent most of my spring semester and summer tutoring kids in Scratch and JavaScript until I needed to move for grad …show more content…
Having now spent some time as a PhD student with both research and teaching obligations, I realize that computer science focuses much more on research than teaching. Further, while I work as a teaching assistant for the department, the TA experience fails to match the expectations my undergraduate advisers gave me. Going into the program, I assumed, as it occurs in mathematics, that my position would require me to actually teach an entire course. This is not the case. Unfortunately, the TA position serves more as a grading assistantship - although, this is an obligation I find enjoyable. Thankfully, having expressed my interest in academia, my TA adviser provided me with the opportunity to work on tasks other than grading, such as assisting with creating assignments, writing homework solutions and test cases, and assisting in developing a grading script for programming homeworks. While I am grateful for the opportunity, I realize that I want to be in a position where I possess teaching