Leadership has always been a huge passion of mine, and when I came to the University of Washington, I sought out to get involved in making an impact within my college community. After getting involved with the Emerging Leaders in Engineering program, I found a new passion for mentoring through education, driving my passion for TA and peer mentorship positions.
CSE 12x
Introductory Java Programming
Walking through an Arrays programming problem.
Presenting to 120 TAs on how to assist CSE 121 students in office hours.
Selected for 1 of 30 spots out of 210 applicants, my role as a teaching assistant at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering, has helped me develop strong technical communication skills in concisely explaining programming concepts while leading a classroom.
Currently, I serve as a TA for CSE 121, the first course in CSE 12x, a three course introductory Java programming series.
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I guide my class of 21 students through understanding foundational programming concepts and skills.
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I individually work with students from all three intro courses to debug code and break down introductory and complex programming problems in a clear and concise manner, bridging gaps in their understanding of topics such as recursion and object oriented programming.
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I work to improve resources for students, developing web pages in HTML and CSS to best display course content.
It often surprises people that I’m a TA for a computer science course coming from the design-centric HCDE major, and my deep passion for the role shocks people even more. Amongst my HCDE peers, the 12x series is despised, as they conceptually struggled with difficult problems. However, I found myself loving the challenge and understanding how new concepts built upon prior content. I loved seeing how the different puzzle pieces fit together. I began the three-part 12x series as a student with zero programming knowledge and left as a teaching assistant, building my interest in developing education that could truly help a student through all stages of understanding.
As a designer, I’ve learned so many problem solving skills through computer science. When debugging code, I teach my students to approach it iteratively and step by step, and as a designer, I seek to practice the same methodologies in design challenges. As a product manager, my foundations in computer science paired with my academic background in design help me understand how different teams within tech can collaboratively work together to complete projects.
GEN ST 199
The Engineering University Community
The 2024-2025 Engineering Peer Educator cohort.
My GEN ST 199 class from Autumn 2024.
In their first quarter of college, all freshmen engineering students at UW are required to register for GEN ST 199, an Engineering First-Year Interest Group (E-FIG). After completing my own E-FIG, I decided to take the first step forward in pursuing leadership opportunities at UW and apply to be an Engineering Peer Educator (EPE), the students that teach E-FIGs, for the following year. Selected as 1 of 45 EPEs out of 200+ applicants, I prepared for this role through attending a weekly training course for two academic quarters to learn about successfully developing and presenting inclusive, engaging, and relevant lesson plans to 23 engineering freshmen.
My biggest takeaways:
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Being adaptable and going with the flow
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As I taught my class, I found that no amount of preparation could anticipate how the day’s class would actually go. Learning to think on the fly and shift my lessons was critical.
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Every student is on a different pathway, and it’s my responsibility to adapt to it
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When it comes to mentorship, one size does not fit all, with each student coming a unique background and experience level.
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Developing engaging and effective lessons
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Time is valuable to college students, and I needed to ensure that the one hour we spent together as a class was valuable in furthering their knowledge. I strove to develop lessons that were captivating and relevant to exploring engineering.
During the 2025-2026 school year, I look forward to taking on a new position within this program as a Lead Engineering Peer Educator. In this role, I’ll be mentoring the mentors, working with the College of Engineering to strengthen the EPE program and providing support to the incoming cohort as they begin their journeys in peer leadership and classroom commandeering.