"I'm Nick. I signed up as "Nicholas" on Wyzant as that is my custom when creating
an account on professional websites, but I prefer "Nick" for person-to-person
contacts, as "Nicholas" is fairly formal; I like to keep conversations and
discussions informal, while at the same time focused on the subject at hand. I
earned a BA in Mathematical Computer Science (magna cum laude, '78) from more...
"I'm Nick. I signed up as "Nicholas" on Wyzant as that is my custom when creating
an account on professional websites, but I prefer "Nick" for person-to-person
contacts, as "Nicholas" is fairly formal; I like to keep conversations and
discussions informal, while at the same time focused on the subject at hand. I
earned a BA in Mathematical Computer Science (magna cum laude, '78) from St.
Louis University - I'm originally from St. Louis, Missouri - and an MS in
Computer Science from Purdue University (1980).
While my only formal teaching experience was teaching programming for two
academic years as a graduate teaching assistant at Purdue, during the course of
my career as a software engineer (developer and tester) I have certainly showed
other engineers how to use various systems and applications. (Sometimes it may
have been owing to my specific subject matter expertise, but generally it was
because I had been trained on and/or had experience with the
system/application before the other engineer(s). On at least one occasion that I
can recall, I was the "pioneer" in the use of that software in the test lab for
the project.) When I had the opportunity to help others learn in that way, one
reason I enjoyed doing that was that it sometimes improved my understanding
of the system or application. However, the main reason that I like teaching is
simply that I like to help people. (It was my altruism, as well as my love for
science, that motivated me to start out in pre-med at St. Louis U.; but I
soon realized that a career in computer science/technology better suited my
aptitudes.)
All told, I have about 40 years of experience using computers in college, work
and personally (not just for email and internet use - almost all my current
hobbies involve computers). In particular, I have over 20 years of professional
experience with Unix/Linux and at least 15 years of experience with the C
programming language. I have been a Mac user personally since 2002 (I have used
Windows PCs professionally" less...
