I previously mentioned that I was the Teaching Assistant (TA) for the Operating Systems class this quarter. It’s going quite well, though just as I remember, this class is a lot of work for the students, and a hell of a lot of work for the TA. I recently finished grading the third project in the class, and am now continuing my preparation for tomorrow’s lecture.

Tomorrow’s lecture is super exciting for me because not only do I get to lead it, it is my first time talking to a mostly full class for an hour and fifteen minutes. I teach discussion sections each week, however these differ in that roughly only half the class shows up, and additionally I don’t have to prepare much material since discussion sections go in the direction that the students desire. Tomorrow, however, this is not the case. I was given lecture slides from which it is my responsibility to impart knowledge onto the students about a specific topic, and that is exactly what I intend on doing.

I’ve read the relevant sections in the book from which the slides were prepared and I have even thought up some questions students might ask. To top it off, I’ve even planned some stupid jokes, such has how I am planning to say, “It’s a trap!” when the kernel traps due to an invalid memory access. I don’t want to give away too many of my tricks, but hopefully you get the impression that I’m excited and ready for tomorrow’s lecture.

Am I nervous? Absolutely not. I was nervous to prior to teaching my first few discussion sections last quarter, however talking in front of Computer Science students has simply become part of what I do. I’d probably be nervous if I had to instruct a class for a different department, but I’m always nervous the first time I do something new.

To end this I want to write that I’ve finally updated my CV on my Computer Science home page. If you’re interested in what academic and professional things I’ve been up to check it out.


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