Humans of CSE Apr
An integral part of your university experience will be the classes that you go to and even more important than that is the tutors that teach them. It’s easy to place them on a podium and treat them as an endless wealth of knowledge - but they are people as well.
In this month's article we will be exploring two perspectives of a CSE Tutor at UNSW - and who knows, maybe after this you’ll consider teaching your own class.
Introduce yourself!
Anonymous: Hi there! Unfortunately I want to keep my identity anonymous, but I've been teaching a level 2 and a level 3 course after tutoring since 24T1.
Anonymous: Hi, I’m currently a final year Computer Science student and I currently tutor COMP2041 and COMP6080.
What was your pathway to becoming a tutor?
Anonymous: I originally had no intentions to be a tutor - I thought tutors were way too cracked, and I simply thought I wasn't smart enough. However, one of my tutors told me I'd be a great tutor for one of the courses I took after I showed enthusiasm towards my course, and after achieving a HD for the course, he recommended me to the course admins and here I am!
Anonymous: I started tutoring as a comp1511 tutor in my first year before moving onto some other courses after a couple semesters.
What do you enjoy most about being a tutor?
Anonymous: Two things:
- When you study for your own course, all you do is reinforce your understanding and try to get better marks for assignments, quizzes and exams. But when tutoring, it feels like it's your responsibility to get your students to have better marks. When I teach my own ways of approaching fundamental basics to challenging concepts, and giving tips on solving problems and my students understand, I feel so relieved I helped them learn something new.
- Surprisingly, I also love meeting various people when tutoring. Whether it comes to chatting with my students or talking with other tutors teaching the same course, it opens up so many new opportunities to interact with other people studying the same degree.
Anonymous: Keeping my knowledge sharp. Courses can teach some very specialized knowledge and when it’s been a long time, I tend to forget the details since I’m not using it day to day. I think tutoring really helps my brain retain the content.
What is your biggest challenge as being a tutor and how do you approach it?
Anonymous: I think my biggest challenge is writing my own slides and code so that new students have a much easier time approaching the course content. When I make my slides, I assume everyone did not watch their lectures, and I try to make an easy step-by-step approach to understanding the course content and solving the related questions. This takes a considerable amount of time as I don't go through pre-made tutorial contents, and making slides and example code easy for everyone takes a lot of consideration in general. However, I always get reviews every term that the students liked my slides and example code which helped them understand the course contents a lot better, which makes me feel proud of myself!
Anonymous: Sometimes I simply just do not know the answer to your question 😭. Usually I’ll have enough context information to make a guess with maybe 90% certainty and I’ll go from there. Occasionally though I simply just do not know in which case I grab another tutor or ask someone who would know.
What is something that you want people to know about tutors that most people don't know?
Anonymous: Some new students (especially first and second year) think we're super cracked individuals who know everything and can answer all the questions related to the course. This might be an exaggerated example, but I once had a student in my course asking me how to set up AWS instances in a course completely unrelated to AWS, thinking tutors know almost everything there is to coding. The fact is, we have to go through the course content ourselves before teaching to check if there are any key principles we forgot about the contents we teach, and we also sometimes struggle to answer some questions if they are topics the tutors haven't looked into before :((
Anonymous: You should ask us more questions! Especially in labs, if you’re stuck on an issue for more than 15 –20 minutes, then consider asking a question! We’re here to help and we’re very friendly 😊
In a male dominated faculty, how is your experience as a female tutor?
Anonymous: Luckily I’ve never had any issues 😄 Just go for it!
Any advice for any students who wish to become a tutor?
Anonymous: First of all, show that you have effective communication skills to your tutor. Ask constructive questions, participate in class, and if possible show yourself helping other peers in your class. This assures us tutors that you know the contents very well, and have enough communication skills to become a tutor. If your grades are also decent (HD is preferred, but for some courses DN is also fine), kindly ask your tutor if they can write a referral for you. Don't beg them for referrals - show them you have enough communication skills and understanding of the course content enough for them to write a referral for you!
For more useful resources:
CSESoc Discord - A great place to ask questions and get advice from fellow students!
UNSW Subreddit - This is not CSESoc affiliated, however it is popular amongst students when seeking useful advice that may have been asked by past students in subreddits. Use at your own discretion.
CSESoc Outreach aims to release monthly articles that highlight the diverse experiences of students. We invite you to submit feedback or share your own insights through the form. Your stories, advice or perspectives could be invaluable to someone navigating university life.
https://forms.gle/Vt12TthoPhGSALGf8
Liem Phan, Hayden Ho, Qiandai Huang