Tyler: Darien tutor

Certified Tutor

I played basketball, my first love, through High School and still enjoys pick-up games. I played one season of football as a Senior in High School and scored one touchdown on a Senior night loss of 56-6. I am an avid board game player and collector. Most of my free time is spent reading Philosophy and Theology books and discussing ideas with friends, who make fun of him for my perfectly reasonable affinity for ketchup (which goes perfectly well with a Grilled Cheese Sandwich, thank you very much!).

My love of math started in middle school and it continued all the way through college. I was attracted to the simplicity and beauty of it as well as the certitude of having one correct answer with many possible ways to reach it. Although I didn't anticipate it coming into university, I found my academic home as a Mathematics major. While at school I helped my fellow students with their homework, and I was known in my dorm as the ad-hoc math tutor. Later I worked for the tutoring center at my school, specializing in helping students with their math problems in a no appointment walk-in basis in classes such as Algebra, Calculus, and Linear Algebra.

My approach to tutoring now is the same as it was then: to teach the subject material in a way that best fits the student. This could be with relevant examples, by simplifying the language, or by pointing out common pitfalls and misunderstandings, catching mistakes before they happen. Also, good communication between student and tutor is key to learning. I like to ask the student questions to make sure I know where they are at conceptually at different points in the session. I always try to fill in conceptual holes that may have been left behind from past math courses and reinforce fundamentals. Math builds on itself, so it is nearly impossible to build upon a shaky foundation. Many times this is the main hangup for students, and shedding light on a forgotten concept makes the current coursework much more straightforward.

You will find that I will be easy to work with. I expect that my love for games (board, video, sports) will help me to connect with students and bolsters my problem solving skills. My math skills have been attested to by my college's math faculty as they awarded me the Euclid Award for excellence in the field and I've had one student tell me she wished I taught her class!

I hope I am a right fit and I look forward to working with you!