Patrick R. McElhiney, as a PhD student, has had the opportunity to coach and teach other students how to work out Computer Science and Information Technology related problems. Patrick has more of a big picture view on everything, and is able to come up with many different ways of solving the same problem. Patrick has always been looked up to by his fellow students, as someone who is reliable, and someone who can be trusted to have good advice on how others should pursue their academic goals, and even how they can solve specific problems in difficult classes. It's not just because of the way that Patrick scores highly on exams, homework, and projects - it's that Patrick is objective with his studies, and he would never give anyone bad advice just to make them leave him alone. He keeps an open door to all other students, and he doesn't try to hide the fact that he's smart - nor does he have an ego about his extraordinary abilities to understand difficult topics and make perfect sense of them to others.
Patrick would like to be a teacher in some capacity, someday, whether that be as a teacher at the University, or to have a staff of at minimum dozens of other employees that need Patrick's guidance as to what to do when they get stuck or don't understand instructions. Patrick isn't the type of person that expects people to succeed or admit failure - he likes helping students that have planned poorly their academic time around busy work schedules, and also students that need guidance on what to do on assignments and projects. Patrick keeps high standards of economic honesty, and has never helped anyone cheat. He provides guidance that is useful to students to determine how to move forward on tasks, but not overarching. Patrick keeps a lot of free time to be able to teach and mentor others. Patrick abstains from a personal life to be able to be a professional, all the time, and that's what students expect when they pay to go to a University. They want to learn what they need to know for their careers, not necessarily what their teachers do on their leisure time.
Education is never going away, and we must demand more from teachers, as they are responsible for the success of their students - regardless of their teaching schedules. Not all people have the liberty to be able to dedicate their lives to being a professional student and teacher / mentor, but the ones that do - like Patrick R. McElhiney, need to help students succeed, not just be concerned for their own careers or tenure. It's more important to pass the knowledge on, as much as possible, than to create puzzles that students can't solve. Patrick knows what students are capable of, and continues to push them to become better students, regardless of how receptive they are to academia in general.
