Emory: Yorkville tutor
Certified Tutor
I just graduated from Virginia Tech in May of 2015 with a bachelor's of science in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research. I was accepted into a PhD program at UC Berkeley in the same field with one of the most prestigious fellowships given to entering doctoral students. After moving to Berkeley and spending a few months in the program, I decided to take a leave and re-evaluate what I would like to do moving forward. The culture of the department was very cold, competitive, and un-supportive, and they only really valued my math skills rather than all of the other aspects of my identity. I have many other passions, including dance, theatre, drawing, teaching, cooking, and my work as an activist is very important to me. During my leave from school, I will be pursuing those passions while I decide where to go next.
I started tutoring in high school as a swim instructor and Spanish tutor. Then, in college, I really found my love for teaching. For my last two years, I tutored individuals and well as groups and classes in theoretical statistics, probabilistic operations research, and statistical quality control. The feedback I got from those experiences was incredible and many students told me how much more confident in the material they were, how much easier the material seemed, and how grateful they were that they would now get through the class successfully. I had so much success as a tutor in college that a lady who worked in the main office of my department contacted me for algebra tutoring sessions because she was going back to school to get a degree, and she ended up getting an A in the class!
I am qualified to tutor all levels of algebra and calculus because I use these subjects in my studies on a daily basis. I have gone far beyond high school level in both subjects; taking classes like multi-variable calculus and abstract linear algebra. When I was in high school, I got the highest possible grade (5) on the AP Calculus AB exam, and I was awarded the department of mathematics award given to only one student in my graduating class. I graduated salutatorian. I am young and fresh out of college so I can relate to your student and the material is fresh in my mind! I am very outgoing and like to make my sessions as fun and enjoyable as possible.
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Undergraduate Degree: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University - Bachelors, Industrial and Systems Engineering
dance, theatre, drawing, music, cooking, hiking, teaching, activism, singing
What is your teaching philosophy?
I like to cater my sessions to each individual. I know that math can be really scary, so I try to look at it from the particular student's point of view and then frame it in a way that shows them that math is actually very logical and sometimes really cool! After getting the correct solution to something, the student can feel accomplished and confident enough to try more.
What might you do in a typical first session with a student?
I would really like to hear what their experience with the subject has been like thus far. How they feel they are doing, and what some of their worries are. I would also like to know their goals for the class, whether that is just needing to pass, or if they need to get a top score on their AP exam for college credit reasons. If there is something in particular that they are struggling with, we can start talking about that. If they really have no idea, that is alright too. With students like that, I usually start with some practice problems to see what concepts they understand or not. This helps me gauge what kind of handle they have on the subject in order to find a good place to start.