Brandon

Certified Tutor

I graduated cum laude from Princeton University in 2014, majoring in Politics with minors in French and Theater. Over the last two years, I've worked in the media and entertainment world and will be applying to law school later this year to matriculate in the fall of 2017.

I'd be a great tutor particularly because of the success I've observed in tutoring my younger cousin (rising HS sophomore). I also tutored classmates throughout my high school career in a variety of subjects.

In my opinion, the most important attribute in a tutor is flexibility: being able to tailor goals and strategies to a particular student's needs and optimal learning styles. My strengths are in methodically breaking down concepts in a variety of subjects and making them accessible, especially with visual aids and diagrams. I also have an ability to motivate students to think for themselves by asking stimulating questions ("Okay, we know Mt. Everest is closer to the equator than Rome, yet it's still colder than Rome. But what else is different about the two that could explain why that's the case?"). Finally, I've found that the best way to facilitate learning is to highlight easily understandable parallels to the content being studied. For example, I would compare a historical event to an ongoing, contemporary controversy. Or I would encourage students to think of historical figures as actual characters with goals and motivations instead of just a name on a page. Likewise, when tutoring vocabulary, I would encourage students to make an educated guess about a word's meaning by thinking of other words with similar roots.

Through it all, students need to feel that their tutor is someone dependable, trustworthy, and fun to be around. This is an attitude I'd bring with me to any session.