Nuwan Jaliyagoda

My last day as a Temporary Instructor

University of Peradeniya

My last day as a Temporary Instructor
Published: 2022-08-14

Today is my last day as a Temporary Instructor at the Department of Computer Engineering, UoP.

It was a hard decision for me to leave, with all the memories, challenges, and experiences I gather during the last 11 months. Maybe this is the happiest time (^months before the economic crisis in SL) of my life, and I’m sure that kind of time never come again. 🥺

I will join the industry as a Software Engineer next week. Maybe most of you will question me why I choose to be a Temporary Instructor (salary-wise it is less than 20% of the average SE salary, and experience-wise it is ~1/4 of the time to be promoted to the next level).

Here is the answer; when I graduated last year, I thought it is the time to give something back to the place where I learned. So happy to say I got a lot of opportunities to fulfill my thoughts, and the followings are a few:

  1. Established a new 1500 sq. ft MakerSpace lab (Maybe it is the first-ever University MakerSpace; let’s keep the story for another day)
  2. Got a chance to be a mentor/advisor for 20+ student development projects.
  3. Be a developer/designer to establish an inter-connected, automated, and sustainable web-based information system for the Department (Projects, People, Publication, Courses, FAQ, Inventory, Map) with the department’s own Open API portal.
  4. Design a set of Hardware Lab Practicals with Remote Access (for the CO326 - Computer Systems Engineering course)

Need to give special thanks to Dr. Isuru Nawinne, Prof. Roshan Ragel and all the Academic / Temporary Academic staff as well as all the Non-academic staff (I want to highlight that, I never seen that much of supportive staff in any other place) who were with me.

Last not least, 3 special mentions Dilshani, Sandaru, and Deelaka (They know for what I’m thanking 😆)