Sarah Alizadeh-Shabdiz

Teaching Made Me a Better Engineer

When I first started tutoring, I thought my job was simple: to help students understand math and science. Over time, I realized I was learning just as much from my students as they were learning from me.

Tutoring and mentoring have become some of the most influential experiences in my professional development. They have changed the way I communicate, the way I approach difficult engineering problems, and even the way I define good leadership.

As an engineering student, much of my education has focused on technical ability. I have spent countless hours solving equations, writing code, building prototypes, running simulations, and analyzing results. Those skills are essential, but tutoring taught me something that is much harder to measure on an exam: knowing something and being able to communicate it are two very different skills.

A complicated solution is not always the best solution. Sometimes, the person who understands a problem most deeply is the person who can make it understandable to someone else.

That lesson has followed me everywhere.

Learning to See a Problem Through Someone Else's Eyes

One of the most important things tutoring has taught me is that there is rarely only one way to understand something.

A student may not understand my first explanation. Or my second. That does not mean the student is incapable of learning the material. It means I need to find another way to communicate it.

Maybe we need to draw the problem. Maybe we need to connect it to something familiar. Maybe we need to go back three steps and find the exact point where the confusion started.

That process has made me much more conscious of how differently people think.

It has also made me a better engineer.

Engineering requires us to communicate with people who do not necessarily share our technical backgrounds. An idea may need to be explained differently to another engineer, a professor, a client, a student, or someone seeing the project for the first time.

Being technically correct is important, but if no one else understands your idea, your ability to create an impact with it becomes limited.

Tutoring taught me to ask myself: Do they understand what I am saying, or am I simply saying what makes sense to me?

That is a question I now carry into professional settings.

Mentorship Is About More Than Giving Answers

Mentoring students has also changed my understanding of leadership.

When someone comes to you for help, it can be tempting to immediately give them the answer, but I have learned that the fastest way to solve someone's problem is not always the best way to help them grow.

Sometimes my role is to ask another question.

"What have you tried?"

"Why did you choose this approach?"

"What do you think should happen next?"

Those questions give students the opportunity to develop confidence in their own reasoning.

That has shaped the kind of leader I hope to become. I do not want leadership to mean being the person in the room with every answer. I want it to mean creating an environment where other people feel comfortable contributing ideas, asking questions, making mistakes, and developing their own solutions.

Bringing Those Lessons Into Research

These lessons have become especially valuable in my engineering research.

Research rarely provides a clear path from question to answer. A simulation may behave unexpectedly. Code that worked yesterday may produce a completely different result after one parameter changes. An assumption that seemed reasonable may turn out to be wrong.

My research has involved computational modeling of bacterial growth and gene transfer, where I use simulations to study how bacterial colonies grow, interact, and transfer genetic information.

There have been many moments when the results were not what I expected.

Tutoring has helped me become more comfortable in those moments.

When a student gets an unexpected answer, I do not tell them that the entire problem has failed. We look at what happened, identify where the reasoning changed, and use that information to decide what to try next.

I have learned to approach my own research in much the same way.

Instead of immediately seeing an unexpected result as failure, I ask: What is this result telling me?

That shift—from frustration to curiosity—is one of the most valuable professional habits I have developed.

The Importance of Asking for Help

Mentorship has influenced my career from the other side as well.

One of my earliest research opportunities began because I was willing to reach out to someone who had been teaching me.

While taking linear algebra, I learned that my teaching assistant was involved in a soft robotics research laboratory. I was interested in the work, so I reached out and asked about getting involved.

That decision helped lead me into research.

At the time, sending one message did not feel like a major career decision. Looking back, it became an important turning point in my engineering education.

It taught me that mentorship does not always begin with a formal program or someone officially becoming your mentor. Sometimes it begins because you are willing to ask a question, express an interest, or tell someone that you want to learn.

That experience is one reason I take mentoring students seriously today.

You never know which conversation will make someone see a new possibility for themselves.

Creating Space for the Next Person

This is especially meaningful to me as a woman pursuing engineering.

Technical environments can be intimidating, particularly when you are young and still developing confidence in your abilities. It can be easy to look around a classroom, laboratory, or workplace and assume everyone else knows more than you do.

Mentorship can challenge that feeling.

Sometimes, having one person answer your question without judgment, encourage you to apply for an opportunity, or simply tell you that your idea is worth exploring can change how you see yourself.

I want to be that person for others whenever I can.

I have come to believe that supporting another person's success does not diminish your own. In engineering, our greatest accomplishments rarely happen individually. They are built through collaboration, shared knowledge, and people who are willing to help one another improve.

Redefining What Makes a Great Engineer

My experiences in tutoring, mentoring, and research have changed my definition of professional success.

Technical excellence still matters deeply to me. I want to understand difficult problems, conduct meaningful research, and contribute to technologies that make an impact.

But I no longer think being a great engineer is only about how much you know.

It is also about how you treat people when they do not know.

It is about whether you can explain your ideas clearly, listen to perspectives different from your own, accept feedback, ask for help, and help the people around you become more confident in their abilities.

Kindness and respect are not separate from professionalism. I believe they are part of what makes someone an effective professional in the first place.

Tutoring started as an opportunity for me to share something I was good at with other students. Instead, it became one of the experiences that most strongly shaped the engineer and professional I want to become.

Every student I teach reminds me that knowledge becomes more valuable when we share it.

Every person I mentor reminds me that leadership is not about having all the answers, and every difficult engineering problem reminds me that you do not have to know the answer yet.

Sometimes, the most important thing you can do is stay curious enough to keep looking for it.