Experience
Teaching Assistant — Fundamentals of Computer Science · Northeastern Khoury College
I TA’d Fundamentals of Computer Science, Northeastern’s introductory programming course, across two semesters and two languages (DrRacket and Kotlin). The experience pushed me to learn Kotlin from scratch on a tight runway and to teach concepts I’d only just internalized myself.
Highlights
- Led, taught, and graded labs of 30+ students in Kotlin (self-taught for the role) and DrRacket.
- Held office hours and one-on-one debugging sessions to help students build a first mental model of recursion, higher-order functions, and data design.
What I worked on
I ran weekly labs of 30+ students, walked through problem sets, graded assignments, and held office hours. A meaningful chunk of the role was building intuition for recursion, higher-order functions, and the design recipe — concepts that look simple on paper but take real practice to internalize.
What I learned
Hosting office hours espeically taught me to articulate ideas precisely. If a student couldn’t follow my explanation, I had to find a new way to convey it. I also picked up Kotlin on a tight schedule, which made me more comfortable with learning new languages and frameworks quickly. I also regularly contributed to the weekly TA meetings, where the professor implemented our feedback on the course structure and content, which was a great opportunity to see how courses evolve behind the scenes and to advocate for students.
Photos
