Mark: Petaluma tutor

Certified Tutor

I was born in Iraq where I finished my high school. I was granted a scholarship to study in the UK. I very much enjoyed my life in that country where the only major responsibility was to complete my degree. My first degree was the GCE (General Certificate of Education) in Mathematics and Statistics from a college in south Wales. This degree is almost equivalent to an associate degree. Then I moved near London where I attended Royal Holloway College of the University of London where I finished my BS honors in Mathematics. Eighteen months later I finished my MS degree in Statistics from Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UK. My career as a programmer/analyst started after my return to Basrah at the south of my home country Iraq. The job was completely different than what I had been taught during all those years in the UK. That was expected. What I learned with all those complicated formulae could not be applied in real life jobs. The main purpose of most college degrees is to show the world that you are capable of learning, analyzing and solving most major problems you may encounter. I enjoyed my job as a programmer because it was challenging. I was also involved in some engineering problems where I enjoyed solving them. Ten years went by, after which I had to move to Baghdad with my wife and two daughters because of Iranian shelling on Basrah during Iraq-Iran war of cities. I started a new job as a researcher. That job had more challenges to me as it involved solving highly sophisticated mathematical problems. Life started getting harder after the Gulf war and the embargo on Iraq. For this reason and for some philosophical differences I had to leave Iraq with my family and come to USA to join two brothers and a sister who have been living in Michigan for thirty years. Life in USA is quite different than in the Middle East. We had to learn new traditions and meet new friends. I started a good job with an IT company as a system analyst. I also started facilitating Algebra and Statistics in the undergraduate and postgraduate programs for some universities. I also tutor statistics and mathematics online.