photos by Yana Kuzmanova

Svetla Boytcheva is an adjunct professor in the computer science department who is teaching Software Development using C++, and Object Oriented Languages. She has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Sofia University, Bulgaria. She still lives and works in Sofia and comes to Blagoevgrad for her classes every Tuesday and Friday.

What can you tell us about your professional experience?

I have about 20 years of teaching experience at Sofia University at the department of mathematics and informatics. I have also given lectures at New Bulgarian University (NBU), and currently also at the State University of Library Studies and Information Technologies (SVUBIT).

How did you decide to come to work in AUBG?

One of my colleagues, Dimitar Christoz ov, invited me to AUBG last year to give a lecture and to meet other colleagues from the computer science department. They invited me to teach this spring semester here.

How do you like Blagoevgrad?

Blagoevgrad is a small quiet town compared to Sofia, where everything is busy. Here the atmosphere is really helpful for studying because there are not so many distractions to the learning process.

What are the major differences between AUBG and the previous places where you have worked?

Here the students are motivated to study. They are really demanding towards their professors because they want to get almost everything in terms of knowledge from a course. Also, usually at other universities, students start working after the second year and it becomes rather difficult for them to attend classes.

How did you become interested in Computer Science?

I started to study programming languages at school, which was quite a long time ago. When I began to studying at the faculty of mathematics and informatics, I learned more about the computers and the computer programming languages. These were my favorite classes at the university and I started to work at first as a computer programmer, but later I continued with the scientific parts of the computer programming, and I became an assistant professor at the university.

Computer technologies are always changing. Do you find it hard to be up-to-date with the new offerings?

That is really hard, because almost every day you need to read a lot of new information concerning your subjects to update your lecture materials, but unfortunately you're not able to follow this intensive move in the information technologies all the time.

Do you think the COS department has all the necessary literature?

You can find here a lot of newly issued books and a lot of journals published in the field of information technologies from the last few years.  Unfortunately, when one book on information technology is issued, it is already old, it is not up-to-date and for the computer science education it is more important to give the students the fundamentals. You are not able to give them all the new things invented in this area, you need to give them the fundamentals, which is what we are trying to do in these courses.

What about the computers and software you have to work with?

Here we are working with the newest software concerning my subjects such as Visual Studio 2008. The computer lab where we have our lectures and exercises is well equipped; unfortunately the professors' computers are not so well equipped. I can't start the software in the office and I can't show the programs in class. Instead I have to use PowerPoint and other Microsoft Office programs.

What are your hobbies?

I like sports, I like fitness, I also like hiking, and classical music. I can play several instruments, and I like reading interesting books.