From Software Engineer to Educator
Why I Chose Chalk Over Code

Till Grade 6, maths was my biggest fear.

Not a mild discomfort. Real fear. Every test, every exam - I was just hoping to scrape through. Barely passing marks, every single time. My parents had come to expect it. I had come to accept it. I had quietly told myself that maths was simply not for me.

And then Grade 7 happened. And with it - Madam Wad.

The Teacher Who Did Maths in Her Mind

She was unlike any teacher I had ever seen.

She was a Vedic maths expert. And I mean that seriously - half the calculations, half the steps, happened entirely in her head. She would sometimes just sit, speak, and teach. No writing. No working out on the board step by step. The answers would arrive fully formed, like she was reading them from somewhere the rest of us couldn't see.

A lot of kids struggled in her class. And I completely understand why - if you were waiting to just copy steps off the board, you were lost.

But something clicked for me. Something I had never been taught before - and have never forgotten since.

I learned to visualise.

Watching my teacher forced me to stop being a passive copier and start being an active thinker. I had to picture the problem in my head. I had to think ahead of the step I was currently on. I had to ask - before she got there - what comes next and why. I picked up calculation tricks I still use to this day. I developed a way of seeing maths that I can only describe as spatial - like the problem has a shape, and once you see the shape, the solution is almost obvious.

I didn't just learn maths from her. I learned how to think.

10 Out of 10

I still remember the day my first unit test came back.

My parents were at home, quietly worried. Not even asking me what I had done - just hoping I had passed. That was the bar. Just pass, Kirti. Just don't fail.

I got 10 on 10.

Full marks. In maths. The subject I had been terrified of my entire school life.

From that day to today, there has been no looking back.

What changed between Grade 6 and Grade 7? Not my brain. Not my ability. Just one thing - I got the right teacher. She believed in me before I believed in myself. She guided me, motivated me, and rewired the way I approached the subject entirely.

My belief that maths is not a talent but a skill - it didn't come from a book or a research paper. It came from that classroom. From that test paper. From my teacher.

I owe who I am today entirely to her.

And Then I Started Teaching - Also in Grade 7

Here is the funny part. The same year I found my confidence in maths - I started teaching it.

My family needed the extra income, and I started tutoring kids younger than me in the neighbourhood. I was barely ahead of them. But I noticed something - the same things my teacher had given me, I was now passing on without even realising it. I was teaching kids to visualise problems, not just solve them. To think ahead, not just follow steps. To understand why, not just how.

And the more I taught, the deeper my own understanding went. Teaching made me better at maths. Getting better at maths made me a better teacher. It was a loop that never stopped.

What started as a way to help my family quietly became my passion. I didn't notice the moment it crossed over. It just did.

I Never Actually Stopped

I went on to study Computer Science and Engineering, and later completed my MBA in HR as well. Built a career in software. Worked across different countries. On paper, I was a tech professional.

But I never stopped teaching.

Through my engineering years, alongside a full time career, I kept tutoring students. Wherever work took me - different countries, different communities - I would find ways to teach voluntarily. Different curricula, different kids. But always the same thing at the core: helping a child see maths the way my teacher had once helped me see it.

When I was in Boston, I cleared the MTEL - the Massachusetts Tests for Educator Licensure. Nobody asked me to. But I needed to make it official. To say out loud what had quietly been true since I was twelve years old.

What Engineering and My MBA Gave Me - Together

My engineering background taught me to debug. When a student is stuck, I don't push harder - I go back through the logic and find exactly where the foundation cracked. It is almost never the current problem that is the issue. Fix the crack three chapters ago, and everything opens up. My MBA in HR taught me the other half - that every child is different. Different personality, different fear, different way of making sense of the world. HR taught me to read people quickly, to understand not just what a student doesn't know but why they don't know it, and what kind of environment will help them open up. It taught me to motivate students who had given up, to communicate with parents in a way that builds trust rather than anxiety, and to structure lessons the way a good training programme is built - with clear goals, steady progression, and constant feedback. Engineering gave me the analytical framework. The MBA gave me the people skills. My teacher gave me the philosophy. Together, that is how I teach.

MathAcademy. And Why It Exists.

MathAcademy is everything I have learned across three decades - across classrooms, countries, and curricula - put into one place. The approach I use with every student traces back directly to what my teacher gave me: visualise the problem, think ahead, understand deeply, don't just follow steps.

I believe - with everything I have - that anybody can learn maths. It is not a talent. It is a skill. And every child can build it with the right guidance and someone who genuinely believes in them.

So Why Did I Choose Chalk Over Code?

Honestly? I didn't choose it.

The code was the detour. The teaching was always the road.

It started with a girl who was terrified of maths, sitting in a classroom watching a teacher do calculations entirely in her mind - and something suddenly making sense that never had before. That moment set off a chain of events that led to everything I am today.

Every student I teach, I am trying to give them their own version of that moment.

Thank you, Madam Wad. This one is for you.

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