Over 12 years ago, a piece of paper made me really happy.
I got into Computer Science, Co-op, at St. Jerome’s University (University of Waterloo) – one of the most competitive programs in the country, and one of the most respected computer science programs in the world.
Now you all know that I ain’t no computer programmer, but that’s a story for another time.
Few weeks ago another piece of paper made me really happy yet again. A letter addressed to me.
To: Prof. Ekaterina Solovieva
I don’t even remember what was in the envelope. Maybe a faculty memo? Final exam schedule?
But it was the envelope itself that made my heart skip a beat. In fact, it gave me goosebumps.
I’ve wanted to be a university professor, since I was 18 years old. And for the past four months, I have been teaching psychology at my alma mater. As if that wasn’t enough, I have been teaching psychology in the very same classroom, where years ago I took multiple psychology courses myself.
Talk about coming full circle, eh?
Have you ever found yourself in a place in your life, where you look around, and think to yourself:
“Holy cow! Am I really here?”. “For real? Pinch me!”.
Surreal.
For the past four months, I got to drive to my old university town twice a week and stand on stage in front of really cool intelligent people, and to tell them awesome stories about the subject that I love.
That’s what it was – sharing amazing stuff that I got to learn (some of it in the very same lecture hall) with others.
One night Italian sat in one of my lectures – it was the first time he saw me teach. “How was it?”, I asked at the end of the class.
“You look happy up there”, he smiled.
I got to walk through the same academic buildings where I took classes, I got to buy coffee in the same cafeteria. In a lot of ways, I got to reclaim that town as something different. As a town that is now part of my adulthood, not just part of my youth.
Surreal.
Yours, Prof. Ekaterina Solovieva