"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...