I quit my position as lecturer in Software Engineering


Nearly 2 weeks ago, on 15th June I gave my last lecture as lecturer in Software Engineering at FHV. To round off my experience at FHV and as a little gift to the students I decided to change it into a farewell lecture, where I would give a retrospective of my last 20 years as student, software engineer and lecturer. When I entered the lecture hall I was surprised: word has spread around of my farewell lecture (I told a few students about my plans) and a few students organised a big turnout, so from every semester I taught, a few students came, which in total made probably the largest turnout to any of my lectures I gave at FHV.

After my initial nervousness has faded I very much enjoyed talking to the students from the depth of my heart and I saw that they enjoyed the lecture equally as I did. After I have ended, a few students handed over some really lovely gifts (a T-Shirt with my personal meme on it, how cool is that? 2 bottles of high-quality alcohol, a cool Haskell cup, and a voucher for a parachute tandem jump as well as lovely goodbye cards). To say that I was moved is a strong understatement - this was probably the most rewarding moment of my brief tenure at FHV. To see that my care for the students was returned by them was nearly breaking my heart, especially knowing I would be gone by October I nearly felt like I was leaving them behind.

Why did I quit? I felt that I needed to move on, that my position at FHV was limiting me and that I do not have any promising perspective in whatsoever direction at this institution. Also, I felt that the situation of the education system is getting worse and that if I am going to leave I had to do it now, otherwise I would get stuck in it forever. The decision to leave was probably one of the hardest but also one of the best and most liberating decision I made in my life which I do not regret. By now I have found a new job as Senior Haskell Developer at Generation Lambda in a highly talented team led by brilliant and visionary management with great leadership, where I (will) have tremendous room to grow and also to lead. I do not rule out that I will get back into eduction at some point in the future, when the eduction system has risen from its ashes, but I feel that for now my true place is in the (Cryptocurreny/Blockchain) industry.

In these 2.5 years at FHV I learned a lot about various topics, deepened my knowledge, made implicit knowledge explicit and developed as a person, as a teacher and as a software developer. However, all the time, the students were the most important motivation for me to keep going and I truly believe that if one deeply and truly cares about ones students, then they will return this equally.

As teachers we must never forget that although sometimes they make us angry and frustrate us: without our students we are nothing.