During my PhD at the Paul Merage School of Business, I have been a recitation leader and head teaching assistant in Operations and Decision Technologies since fall 2016. As a lab instructor, I prepared and presented lab materials for undergraduate and graduate level courses including Management Science for Analytics, Statistics for Management/Business Statistics, and Foundations of Business Analytics.
- Management Science for Analytics: This course introduces MBA students in the Business Analytics program to linear programming, network flows, sensitivity analysis, integer programming, goal programming, convex optimization and simulation. As recitation leader for this class, I focus on showing students how to formulate optimization problems both algebraically and in Excel Solver or AMPL. My overall teaching evaluations for this course in Winter 2018, ’19, ’20, and ’21 were 3.92, 3.84, 3.85 and 3.96 out of 4, respectively, and I received a second-place recognition in the 2019 Teaching Assistant Award for Excellent TA from the Paul Merage School of Business.
- Statistics for Management: This course introduces first-year MBA students to probability concepts, descriptive statistics, comparing two or more populations, regression analysis, ANOVA and time series. As recitation leader, I would give a mini-lecture at the beginning of each session to review the core concepts and then demonstrate how statistical problems can be solved in Excel and Minitab. My overall teaching evaluation for this course in Fall 2017 was 3.97 out of 4.
- Foundations of Business Analytics: This course helps undergraduate students in Business Administration discover how business analytics helps drive digital transformation, understand and get exposure to descriptive (e.g., clustering), predictive (e.g., regression) and prescriptive (e.g., optimization) techniques, and identify challenges associated with data and business analytics. For this course, I supervised real-world projects and helped the students through several phases of their projects, from scope definition, to identifying patterns, and drawing insights. My overall teaching evaluation for this course in Fall 2018 was 3.83 out of 4.
What do students say about me?
“I’ve been attending Mojtaba’s TA and Discussion Sessions and he’s a wealth of knowledge, succinct, and always willing to help.” —Management Science for Analytics
“Mojtaba is very knowledgeable and helpful. He has dedicated a lot of time and video- tapes his session so students can watch if they cannot attend which is extremely thoughtful. He has helped me personal better understand a concept that I was struggling with. He not only had regular office hours, but also held special study sessions for assignments, midterm and the final. He has been an outstanding TA.” —Management Science for Analytics
“Great TA. Nice and communicative. Always on time with homework assignments and ready to answer any additional questions.” —Management Science for Analytics
“Mojtaba is a great TA. He holds additional office hours, records important discussion sessions for students who can’t make it. He is always available to help via email, and he arranges extra time to meet in person. Best TA UCI has so far.” —Management Science for Analytics
“Extremely knowledgeable. Teaches subject as a professorial level. Could not have survived this class without his TA sessions.” —Statistics for Management
“I do not attend in person due to a scheduling conflict, however I watch the recording of the sessions at a later date. He does a fantastic job explaining the materials and walking us through problems that are similar to the ones we do for homework. I really appreciate the time he takes to explain complex concepts into an easily understandable. He is AMAZING” —Statistics for Management
“Mojtaba is extremely intelligent and helpful. He easily explains all of the difficult concepts and is very patient in helping all students with specific questions. I’ve attended all of his TA sessions and know for a fact that I wouldn’t have passed stats without his help.” —Statistics for Management