平特五不中

A packed Leacock 132 can be an intimidating place when you鈥檙e down in front and looking back up at more than 600 undergrads about to study university-level chemistry for the first time.

It鈥檚 exactly where听Pallavi Sirjoosingh听wants to be.

The young faculty lecturer, who just won a Principal鈥檚 Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Faculty Lecturer category, is passionate about teaching, more interested in sharing knowledge with fresh-faced students than pursuing research into her own interests, which happen to be timely in a pandemic era: the study of RNA enzymes, the building blocks of COVID-19 vaccines.

鈥淚 really enjoyed my time teaching,鈥� she says of her experience as a teaching assistant pursuing her PhD at Penn State University. 鈥淚 was better at teaching, and I enjoyed my time outside the lab more than I did inside the lab.鈥�

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Feeding off the excitement

Teaching introductory chemistry, some of the biggest classes at 平特五不中, she鈥檚 in her element.

鈥淲hat I really, really like is that, apart from the content or whatever I鈥檓 going to teach, the students are so excited, it鈥檚 the first day of Fall and there鈥檚 just this buzz in the room,鈥� Sirjoosingh says. 鈥淎nd I don鈥檛 know how to not be excited when I鈥檓 in that classroom. They are so excited to learn.

鈥淚 remember how I felt when I was an undergrad in my first year and just starting out and feeling all this excitement about learning, about being in a new place and about all these new avenues 鈥� I really enjoy that aspect of teaching, and that keeps me motivated.鈥�

The content of introductory chemistry doesn鈥檛 really change. This is the foundational stuff, the basic chemistry anyone who wants to pursue more esoteric research later has to absorb first. Does teaching the same material over and over again get stale after a while?

Not so, Sirjoosingh says. 鈥淓very time I go into a class, and this happens every single semester, there will be questions I鈥檝e never been asked before. And it鈥檚 so听 good. It鈥檚 like something new that I鈥檒l think of, or a student will bring听 up something that is slightly outside the course, but related, but I鈥檝e never made that connection before, and now I can. I really enjoy that, because it鈥檚 different every single time, even though I鈥檓 teaching the same content.鈥�

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