Teaching Algorithms & Data Structures at Universitas Brawijaya

After a failed attempt at being a TA (Teaching Assistant) when I was in my third semester of university, I finally managed to become a TA at my faculty. Since the beginning of university, I have always wanted to be a TA. My reasons included getting out of my comfort zone, learning to speak in front of a lot of people, and revisiting the topics covered in the course. This time, I decided to take on (in my opinion) one of the hardest classes in the semester: Algorithms and Data Structures. It is a subject known for complex logic and optimization problems, but I enjoyed the topics back when I was taking the class, which is how I knew teaching it was a good choice.

What does a TA do?

The main thing a TA does is, well, teaching. It is written in the name, after all. But that is not everything a TA does. Other responsibilities include grading student assignments and creating coding problems for live coding sessions.

For me, creating these live coding challenges was the hardest part of the job. Before I could write a problem, I had to deeply understand the concept myself. This forced me to revisit topics I had learned a year prior, often sending me back to LeetCode to sharpen my skills and find inspiration.

Making Mistakes

Preparing the material was one thing, but delivering it was a completely different thing. I mentioned earlier that one of my goals was to improve my public speaking, and there is no crash course quite like coding in front of thirty students.

In the beginning, it was nerve-wracking. It is one thing to solve a bug when you are alone in your room with StackOverflow; it is another to debug an error while dozens of eyes are staring at the projector screen, waiting for you to fix it. But over time, the anxiety faded. I learned that it is okay to make mistakes in front of the class, provided you can explain why the mistake happened and how to fix it.

Is being a Teaching Assistant worth it?

There is a saying that “to teach is to learn twice,” and I found that to be entirely true. When you study for an exam, you only need to know enough to pass. When you teach, however, you need to know the material deep enough to answer other people’s questions.

If you are a university student thinking about becoming a Teaching Assistant, I highly recommend it. It pushes you out of your comfort zone and tests your knowledge in ways a standard curriculum never will.