After graduating from Queens Technical HS in 2015, UFT Career and Technical Education Award winner Mohammed Hossain spent two years in college pursuing his passion — electrical engineering. But rather than take a standard career path in telecommunications or the utilities industry, Hossein had an “aha moment”: He wanted to become a CTE teacher. Explaining and teaching concepts to others had brought him joy as far back as middle school.

Hossain sought the advice of a Queens Tech engineering teacher, who nominated him for the Success Via Apprenticeship teacher-training program.

“It wasn’t that I was dying to be a teacher. It just inserted itself in my life at different points and I was like, ‘This is something that I enjoy,’” said Hossain, now an engineering and AP computer science teacher at the HS for Construction Trades, Engineering and Architecture in Ozone Park, Queens.

Hossain said he enjoys guiding his sophomore electrical engineering students to that point where “something will just click” for them. “And that’s the ‘aha moment’ that I see in my kids now,” he said.

Students said Hossain guides them to the right answer, but never just gives it to them. He encourages students who don’t understand a concept to see if a classmate can explain it in a way that will make sense, they said.

“It’s been helpful because you figure it out on your own and it’s not him spoon-feeding you the information,” said Darshveer, a senior engineering student on the school’s Redhawks Robotics team, which Hossain started several years ago and advises.

Hossain sets up his engineering classes like courses for college freshmen and is working on a dual-enrollment partnership so students can get college credit.

His involvement at the HS for Construction Trades, Engineering and Architecture goes well beyond teaching classes. He spends hours after school and on weekends mentoring robotics club members. The team is headed to the FIRST Robotics Competition in Texas after winning an award at the Hudson Valley Regional in early March. In addition to competing, club members do community outreach to get young people interested in robotics, including at middle schools, libraries and shelters for unhoused people.

Hossain is a member of the school leadership team, does social media for the school, and is an adviser to the school’s SkillsUSA club, which gives students opportunities to develop CTE skills.

“I am content,” he said. “I make a good living. I enjoy what I do.”