February Alumni of the Month: Oleg Nepliouev

DPSF’s February DPS Alumni of the Month is Oleg Nepliouev! A proud graduate of Riverside High School, Oleg has spent the last 13 years working at Triangle Ecycling, where he teach high school students how to build and repair computers.

Reflecting on his time in Durham Public Schools, Oleg credits incredible educators who believed in him and helped shape his passion for teaching, tinkering, and repairing. Several teachers left a lasting impact on Oleg, but none more than Rick Sheldahl, whose support and advocacy changed the course of his life. Mr. Sheldahl went out of his way to make sure Oleg could take his computer engineering course and even introduced Oleg to his current employer, Triangle Ecycling founder Larry Herst. 

Oleg’s advice to current DPS students: “The most important thing right now isn’t to be amazing at something. It’s to try all sorts of stuff so you can discover what you truly love and what’s just not for you.”

Read our full interview with Oleg below!

DPSF: Tell us about you - what DPS schools did you attend? What are you doing now?

I attended Riverside High School and graduated in 2010. For the last 13 years I've been working at Triangle E-cycling teaching high school students how to build and fix computers and learn to be real adults.

DPSF: What does DPS or your school community mean to you? How has it helped shape you into who you are today?
DPS put me into contact with some incredible educators who really believed in me. The district really set me on my own path of teaching and sharing my passion for tinkering and repairing things with our DPS community.

DPSF: What’s your favorite memory from your time at DPS?

Building and deploying images for DPS computers and helping our school IT department by fixing broken keyboards was such a formative experience for me.

DPSF: Is there a teacher who influenced you most along the way? What's their name and how did they make a difference? 

There were multiple teachers who were most influential to me. One thing that really sticks out to me is my time in Computer Engineering 1 with Rick Sheldahl. At a time when I wasn’t able to use our school computers, he stuck his neck out for me and directly approached the principal for me. He was kind enough to let me take the course with him during his free period.

Mr. Sheldahl went above and beyond what is expected of a teacher and truly changed my life. He even put me in contact with my current boss (and founder of Triangle Ecycling) Larry Herst. I became the first employee of Triangle ECycling because of the connections from my teacher. 

I also wanted to shoutout David Hackney whose Civics and Economics course and African American Studies courses were truly incredibly well taught and left a deep impression on me to this day. I also loved having James Hopkins whose world history course really helped me learn to think critically about history and primary sources and their bias.

DPSF: What’s one piece of advice you would give to current DPS students?

The most important thing right now isn't to be amazing at one thing, it's to try all sorts of stuff so you can discover what you truly love and what's just not for you. 

Are you interested in becoming a DPS Alumni of the Month? Find more information here: https://www.bullcityschools.org/alumni