1. “Please let me teach!” –
a tale of Mike Peretz
by Mike Peretz
2. Once Upon a Time...
When Mike was but a young tot, he had an account on Neopets. “What is
HTML?” he thought to himself.
Over the next few years, he learned both basic HTML and CSS through simple
experimentation so that he could make his petpages “pretty.”
“Wait. Changing
the background
does not mean
writing gazillions
of lines of code
that color each
individual pixel?”
3. Career Aspirations
According to his mother, from the ages of 3 to 5, Mike wanted to be an
“Alligator” when he grew up. He had clearly not properly investigatored his
future work-life yet.
From 5 to 7, Mike wanted to be a firefighter. However, due to the impending
recession and subsequent budget cuts, it is likely that he would have been
fired at some point.
From 7 to 12, Mike had no plans for the future. His hobbies included
Sparknotes, Neopets, and drowning people in Roller Coaster Tycoon.
4. Relevant Career Aspirations
From 12 to 14, Mike wanted to be a teacher of some sort. He wasn’t sure which, though:
binary, merge, insertion? (it’s funny because “of some sort” == “some kind of” == “type of sort”)
For most of age 15, Mike wanted to be a lawyer. It took him an entire decade, but he finally
moved on from an alligator to a shark.
From 16 to 17, Mike decided that he wanted to be a computer-“something.” The closest thing
that his school had to a computer science course was having to jiggle the cord on the monitor
to get it to turn on, so I don’t C: how there could be any sort of real drive behind that path.
What he did know is that he still really wanted to be a teacher, so he decided to teach
vicariously through his high school history teacher to keep himself satisfied during this whole
“computer thing.” semicolon However comma she became pregnant and will not be teaching next
semester. Mike was sad.
Argument 1: If Mike became a TA for 225, then he could teach vicariously through himself,
solving the issue altogether. <3
5. Oops
At age 16 ½, Mike started acting crazy, and his social life disappeared, and his
grades became awful. Also, other bad things. He also wrote really bad college
application essays and stopped going to class. It was bad.
Then he decided that he was going to take a gap year and then become an
English major at Yale. English was his best and favorite subject, and jobs are
so plentiful and rewarding. People are begging for English majors to come
work for them. Also, he loved reading. He enjoyed it so much that all but two
of the books in his high school career had been read on Sparknotes, probably
because he just couldn’t wait to get to the next book! Wonderful idea.
6. Yay-ish !
Then, in April, Mike was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, which was really cool
because of the following: things already sucked, so putting a name and reason to
it was an awesome step up!
He was given lots of medicine that made things happy and stable. That was fun,
but it would take 2 months to get up to an effective dose, so #sorrynotsorry @ the
rest of senior year. It still does bad things sometimes (my personal favorite time is
before a midterm, or when lots of assignments are due), but, overall: turn up!
Looking back at the circumstances and the crazy admissions requirements, I am
super grateful to even be here given my poor application.
Got my sense back. Final career decision: “hack the gui,” then become a teacher.
Argument 2: I am super duper passionate about the three things that are relevant
to being a TA: teaching, assisting, and computer science-ing.
7. Why do I want to TA for 225?
I love teaching people. Love it. One-on-one especially. Example: we sat in
Starbucks today, and I helped people with the MP for seven hours (concept-wise.
partners.txt can only hold so many people, and I am an agent of integrity). It was
awesome. I tend to refresh Piazza in an attempt to snipe questions to answer,
because it’s fun.
I love the course content. After 125, I definitely liked computer science, but I still
didn’t really care about it. Ever since I set redFill >= 0 and then solved for d/r, I
have been sold. Pointers are also my fav.
I want to be a 225 TA, but with the emphasis on the “be.” They are crazy on-point
24/7, and they are hardcore under-appreciated. I too want to be on-point for the
benefit of others, because it makes me happy.
Today (Tuesday, March 10, 2015), Ambika, Susan, and I taught a 125 lab. That,
combined with office-crawl 2015 and the 7-hour MP4 session (where we
coincidentally saw Laura again), made this perhaps the greatest Tuesday ever.
8. Why Should I be a TA for 225? (sorry for lots of words)
Argument 3: I love teaching people. A characteristic that seems to be universally common amongst 225
TAs is that they want to be there helping. There is an inarguable correlation between the quality of
help and the desire to help, and I most certainly have that desire.
Argument 4: I offer unique perspectives. As mentioned, I am one of the few who came in with zero
coding experience. At risk of being incorrect, I think that it is fair to assume that this was not the case
for a good majority of the current TAs. While inconvenient for me, having CS 125 as my only coding
experience is definitely useful in regard to helping the many other students who are in the same
position. While less relevant, there is also some merit to having personal experience with mental
illness. Especially in such a rigorous department, it can be scary knowing that your mind can decide to
effectively shut down at any moment, regardless of how much work there is to do. Being able to
empathize with that sort of situation and offer advice is an even more exclusive trait.
Argument 5: I get the material. There is a definite division between people who love 225 and people
who hate it, and I think that it just depends on whether or not it “clicks” with them. I am one of those
people that likes the conceptual implementations that 225 is based off of more than the bare-bones
coding that made up 125. I like to go back and redo old MPs differently after I complete them, just to
both test and widen my understanding of the material. Depending on how things go, an iffy MT1 and
MP3 may lead to me being an “A-” student. Just know that I have an “A” heart. <3
Bonus Argument: I have extensive experience in teaching CS. As aforementioned, my two friends and I
impulsively taught a 125 lab section. Such riveting discussions as “Does Java pass by value or by
reference?”, “Wait. C++ doesn’t have static; what does static do?”, and “Does anyone actually care
whether Java passes by value or by reference?” ensued. I predict that every student in that lab will
never forget how nice it is that Java cleans up memory for them.
Bonus Clarification: Anna described my humor as “Russian”-esque? Whatever it is, it has definitely
occurred in this PowerPoint, so tread with caution.
9. Endorsements:
“The entire CS department is brimming with nice people: those willing to put
aside their own work to make sure you reach your full potential, and who
would make sure you leave a conversation with complete understanding of
the task you have to complete. Mike takes this kindness and thoughtfulness to
another level. I have never met a person more fit to be a TA.” –Ambika Dubey
(adubey3)
“Mike is one of the most helpful, patient, and able partners to do CS with. His
passion for CS is always apparent, and he continues to strive to improve
himself and others around him through his diligence and hard work. He is
dependable and always sacrificing his time for others, making him one of the
best peers I have ever worked with.“ –Gloria Ho (geho2)
“Mike’s already apparent TA abilities were better than any TA or professor’s
office hours I had ever been to and he didn’t even have any direct experience
with my CS 105 class. He taught and explained concepts with a teaching
method that was both helpful and allowed me to actually grasp the content.”
–Sebastian Aviles (savile3)
10. Fun Facts:
Dear Anna: Oops, it’s 5am now, so I will instead be at the 1pm lecture today. If you do not see
me at 11am on March 11th, then I hope that we saw each other at 1pm. If not, then I must
have gotten into an accident; please call for help. –Mike from the Past
I really want to buy a Fennec Fox after I graduate, so on my b-day,
I was gifted this stuffed Fennec Fox Pokemon. I named it Cinda
because cinda->cinder->fire. I hadn’t even met you yet, so I am
taking it as a sign that you live within us all. Amen.
I hate chocolate, and I love eating noodles with ketchup.
I like dancing, but I’ve only ever danced in my room and now in DANC 104.
I’m that kid whose blood alcohol level has been 0 from birth to (allegedly) 21
My Starbucks drink: Trenta Cool Lime Refresher with very light ice and light water. (Edit: it is
now a Trenta Peach Green Tea with very light ice and light water and 6 pumps of peach. It’s
funny how much people change in just a few months)
Thank you so much for your consideration! :)
11. Addendum (ie. This powerpoint is from
early 2015)
Lots of poopies happened since the beginning of the semester, and I fell way
off-course academically (and emotionally). The whole time, though, I still
enjoyed the course and the content. I had no motivation to actually submit
the MPs and labs past MP 5.2, but I still went through them conceptually and
browsed github to get an idea of how to implement the code (didn’t submit
any of it, of course; I just didn’t have the heart to push myself through those
last few MPs at the time. I knew that if I didn’t at least learn the content,
though, that I would regret it very much later when my body’s bipolar
chemicals decided to fix themselves, and walking through the concepts
without the code was really the only viable option to make sure that
happened. I did at least learn it well enough in that last day to score a decent
amount above-average on the final! It was that weird hash table question that
screwed me up, strangely enough.
Thanks, again, for the consideration. L)
