Zahid: Nassau County tutor

Certified Tutor

From a young age, I have been disciplined and determined in the things I have wanted to achieve. In school or extracurricular activities, I have always worked hard to succeed in the goals I set for myself. However, even when I dedicated large amounts of time and energy to completing certain tasks, there were always obstacles that proved more challenging than others. Fortunately, I was always able to find an abundance of resources, tutors, and mentors that assisted me with these obstacles. Now that I have successfully overcome my own personal challenges with the help of others, I am enthusiastic for the opportunity to contribute to this system while gaining invaluable teaching experience.

While I was growing up, music and sports were great outlets for me to have fun and relieve stress, but they taught me something about myself that was much more important I enjoyed to teach others things they did not know. I began to play basketball in fourth grade and continued to play with school and city teams until I graduated from high school. Having played for many years in several different teams gave me the knowledge I needed to become highly proficient in the game. I would often find myself giving tips to others on my team and underclassmen who played on younger teams in school. I found that I enjoyed teaching basketball so much that I volunteered as a basketball coach in a local YMCA during a summer break in high school.

Similarly, I started playing guitar and reading music at a young age, which has made me a proficient guitar player. In high school, I advanced through the three difficulty levels the school offered. At each level, the class instructor would assign me to lead small duets and trios when my classmates and I played together. As leader of these small groups, I would help others improve their guitar techniques and help them read through certain difficult portions of sheet music.

Leading groups of people in both guitar and basketball showed me that I enjoyed teaching others. Having once struggled to learn how to properly do a cross-over or play bar chords, I knew what it was like to wish there were someone to facilitate the learning process for me. Now that I had gathered years of experience, I discovered that I highly enjoyed helping others, like me, who faced time-demanding obstacles in learning that made them question if their approach to learning was the most optimal.

While I was attending the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), I once again got the opportunity to teach others and finally began to tutor science-related fields. As a Biological Sciences major, I felt comfortable enough across several science disciplines to tutor high school kids in Chemistry and Physics. I had the opportunity to work with students for approximately a year before more pressing responsibilities required me to stop working. After my time as a tutor, I went on to graduate with the highest honors as a Biology major from UTEP. Since graduating, I have dedicated my time to studying for the MCAT and applying to medical school.

Now that I have graduated from college, I am familiar with all the material that my students will see. In addition to the wide breadth of experience I have in the subjects I plan to teach, the life-long exposure I have had to tutoring and teaching others makes me a well-rounded tutor. Having the ability to facilitate the learning process of students so that they may better understand complex subjects, I hope I am able to share what I know with others so that they may excel in academics.