I always thought how my teachers influenced and believed in me to achieve a successful career, since I was a student in primary school. Now as a teacher by myself, I believe that a teacher needs to prepare his/her students for an outstanding/rewarding career and help them to shape their future by not only teaching them the material but also being a role model for them. Read more below.

I always thought how my teachers influenced and believed in me to achieve a successful career, since I was a student in primary school. Now as a teacher by myself, I believe that a teacher needs to prepare his/her students for an outstanding/rewarding career and help them to shape their future by not only teaching them the material but also being a role model for them. Hence, I always try to be a good role model for my students and believe in them and strive for their accomplishment in their life. I believe by pursuing an academic career in the United States, I motivate and inspire my students that they can follow their dreams as I did mine. When I started teaching Database Systems class to sophomore students as a junior student this was the first time I experienced how inspiring people feels like. As a young scholar, I was trying to help students who are interested to follow a career in software engineering. Majority of the students came from a wealthy family and they were mostly pursuing a degree rather than a career in software engineering. Some of them were very shy to ask questions in class because they were thinking that their friends will judge them. I told them that “There is no stupid question, asking no question is stupid!” and added that they may also ask their questions after class. Encouraging my students to ask questions made my classes more interactive. They started helping each other to solve the problem that they were struggling with. These efforts created a class environment that show how much enjoyable to develop software and database models. Finally, this helped them not only to pass their classes with great achievement but also become successful software engineers in various companies like Microsoft, Selerant, HARMAN International.My teaching experience continued as a teaching assistant for Simulation and Modeling class during my second year at Auburn University. In this class, there were 58 students, but some of them had specific interest in simulation and also programming. After I realized their specific interests, I started to stay longer after lab hours and answer very specific questions related to discrete event simulation. This helped them successfully completing both their simulation class and their senior design project in which they were required to use simulation modeling. Now I am so glad that I have believed in my students and spent extra time for their projects because there is no price of knowing that your students become an outstanding systems engineer, system analyst, and consultant at companies like Arby’s, Exxon Mobil, Hertz, Quorum, Nobble Systems. In fact, one of my most successful students developed, modeled, and analyzed two case studies using Simio Simulation Software and co-authored two sections of the “Case Studies” chapter included in the 2nd edition of Simio & Simulation; Modeling, Analysis, Applications textbook.
I also was a teaching assistant in Engineering Applications of Fuzzy Systems and Neural Networks class. I had 19 graduate students who came from different countries with various communication skills and background. I arranged flexible office hours for them so they can come and ask questions about their homework assignments or exams. I used visual aids and video examples which made the course material more accessible to visual learners. A few of my students published papers in academic journals such as Electrical Power Systems Research, European Journal of Operational Research, and Applied Soft Computing using Fuzzy Logic and Neural Networks as their methodology.As well as my teaching and research assignments, I mentored for four different undergraduate students in two different research/consulting projects. One of the students was a research assistant in BORBET Bridge Utilization project. He helped various parts of the project us by using VBA, SQL, and Simio Simulation Software. We developed software tools and simulation models, and also performed analysis. In addition to that he helped with documentation and created charts for our consulting presentations. He has gained important skills during this project including customer relations and data collection. Thanks to the skills he developed in this project he was hired as a performance manager at Airbus.As I move into my academic career, I will continue these efforts of helping my students achieving their highest interests in professional career by being a role model and creating a learning environment that increases their motivation in learning engineering concepts.
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