Kihoon Sohn

Instructional Lead - Python; Instructional Associate - Python/Data Science/Data Analytics, General Assembly

Washington, D.C.

Kihoon is good at holding hands with his students at any learning pace. As a General Assembly’s Data Science Immersive graduate, he knows when and how to support his students in their Aha moments, especially for those who pursue a career change in the data science field. He has been in an instructional role with GA since 2018 and has worked at various-sized companies in the public/civil sector. In his free time, he is dedicated to planning the next reward travel with his family by maximizing frequent flyer miles and reward points.

What is your favorite technical skill to work with on your own projects and why?

I’d say my favorite is pattern recognition and outlier detection. I really enjoy digging through messy datasets, spotting signals in the noise, and then reorganizing everything into a cleaner framework that leads to a better solution.

GenAI and prompt engineering are probably my favorites to teach right now. It’s rewarding to see students realize they can do this once the concepts click. At the same time, I still love teaching Python and SQL because the opportunities are much greater when students have strong fundamentals in programming and data.

What matters most to me is helping students build confidence with both the tools and the thinking behind them. In the GenAI and agentic AI era, a lot of repetitive work can be automated, but logic-checking and SME-level validation are still essential. I want my students to firmly understand not only how to use the tools well, but also how to interpret and defend the results they produce with confidence.

Graduating from any course at GA is not a silver bullet for your next move to be honest; it is just the starting point. I am a firm believer in the "connecting the dots" idea: your past experience may seem disconnected at first, but over time they come together into a meaningful pattern. Everything you’ve done before joining the class can make your learning deeper, and these new skills will connect directly to your bigger goals if you keep practicing and applying them.

One thing I’d highlight is what I call "data origami-ing." I am strong at taking complex, messy, and poorly structure data, unfolding it to understand what’s really going on, and then folding it back into something clean, meaningful, and useful. That ability to shape it into a clear final product is a big part of my technical experience. Can't wait to see you in any of my classes!

WHAT KIHOON'S STUDENTS ARE SAYING...

"It’s hard to pick just one thing I enjoyed most about the course - everything from materials to my instructor’s enthusiasm to the projects helped me learn so much. Online learning can be hard, but Kihoon was an engaging instructor." -Student from Apr 2025

"Kihoon provides great feedback and suggestions on assignments, and thorough explanations on questions." -Student from Nov 2025