Becoming the mentor that I needed when I was younger

In addition to my industry and research experience, I’ve done a fair share of knowledge sharing. To be honest, I never saw myself becoming a teacher and I generally refrain from calling myself a teacher/tutor/mentor as much as possible.

That being said, there was a certain stage in my career where there was a void of mentor figure, which I found to have tremendously slowed down my growth trajectory. With no other option provided, I decided to fill in that void myself, self-learning that which I had to know and then shared it for others. It is first and foremost for my own good, but incidentally I find this to be a good way of “paying it forward”, as well. In this post I’ll outline my past tutoring roles.

From Sep to Nov 2024, I was a Teaching Assistant at MindX Technology School. I mentored a group of 10 adult learners in Python, SQL and Power BI lessons. I expanded on concepts taught by the main teacher, guided students through technical exercises. As most of them are non-tech students/ working professionals looking to transition into data, provided them with practical advice on pursuing a career in data (because I was once in their positions, I know first-hand how intimidating it can be).  

Between Dec 2022 and May 2024, I was a Internal Instructor at One Mount. I built a custom curriculum and taught a 5-lesson introductory SQL course for 30+ colleagues from the Marketing and Business Development department in Dec 2022. I gave practical advice on querying large datasets (billions of rows) and analytical methods specific to our business context.

Within my data analytics team of 10+ (our population varied over the years), I led multiple training sessions on technical skills relevant to our projects: applied machine learning, machine learning explanability, inferential statistics, dimensional data warehouse design (most of which I self-learnt). Occasionally, I talked soft skills, namely critical thinking and problem solving – these are the skills that I encourage every person to acquire, regardless of their profession. Believe me, it would do you a world of good.

From Mar to Nov 2019, I was a Teaching Assistant at LinhUK IELTS School. I assisted in classes of 4 IELTS skills, working mostly with high-school and university students. I graded writing assignments and provided detailed feedback on how to improve grammatical structure, lexical usage, and idea development (sometimes my comments were longer than the actual essays 😅). I also trained individually with numerous students in speaking exercise, giving practical advice on pronounciation, intonation and building reflexes to test questions. This was my first paid job, which I was (and still am) particularly proud of.