Teaching is Rewarding | Teacher Stories
Armen Tsirunyan is one of our current tutors with nine years of experience in tutoring. He believes that teaching is way more satisfying and rewarding than just coding and working in enterprises.
“In teaching, you know that you helped someone, which is a recipe for happiness. I have been doing it for nine years now. “
His interest in programming started at an early age, but the real excitement came from programming contests, in which he participated in middle school and then in the university. Then he started to deepen his knowledge in C++, master it and work as a specialist in enterprises on different projects like working with financial data.
“cannot say it’s an exciting job. It is very boring. Teaching is a different story.”
I have asked a couple of questions to Armen to understand the benefits of teaching and how to use non-formal education to change careers to tech.
At what point in life have you decided to tutor?
I decided to tutor when I went to university and found out that most of our professors have zero experience in programming and spoiled the future of many of my classmates, and that was unfair. That’s when I understood that there is much to be done in that sphere. The incompetence of my professors inspired me. The main problem is that back then, most of the professors were 50+ years old people, with no working experience as software engineers, so that they couldn’t teach that.
Why did you decide to teach and share your knowledge with future professionals?
Teaching is interesting in the sense that you work with actual people, and the impact of your work is visible and satisfying than just doing coding work. Also, teaching is something that is mine; I feel great when I am doing a good job in it and therefore gain satisfaction from it.
Can you tell a funny story from your tutoring experience?
I can remember a funny experience from the university course I had. I had an exam question about what the complexity of the following algorithms is, and one of the students wrote for each algorithm easy, medium, hard.
What are the benefits of tutoring?
- You remain in constant professional shape. There is some basic fundamental knowledge that most IT professionals tend to forget over the years. When you tutor your state remains in form.
- Accumulate a larger and more extensive network of future professionals, which is a good backup. One day, for example, you decide to apply for a job in some company, there is a big chance that there are a couple of people who were your students and who can recommend you, which is beneficial.
- You are forced to update your knowledge regularly when new technologies come out. You cannot teach the same thing over and over again. Students know what they want and what they need.
Generally: Networking and professional shape.
Can you share some examples of people who had 0 experience in programming and are now successful programmers? What differs them from others.
I have a vivid example of a student who has graduated from the History Department of Yerevan State University, then went to the army, then realized he wants to become a programmer. He is now working at Picsart; if I am not mistaken, he was outstanding from the very first class, he continually improved himself, kept doing extracurricular problems. That paid off. It always does. I don’t know one who is motivated and hardworking but is unable to learn programming or learn anything. Motivation comes from self-awareness. A lot of people don’t know themselves. They know how they would like to be, and they confuse it with what they are. That’s the trick. When you accept yourself the way you are, you can use that to your advantage.
Please give one piece of advice for people who think to change their career to tech.
I don’t particularly prefer giving advice, to be honest. I will not give any. I would say to be yourself and know why you are doing it. Don’t listen to others but only yourself.
To register to our C++ course, apply here:
