I began my experience as an educator as a General Chemistry Teaching Assistant at Elon University. I then served two semesters as an Organic Chemistry Teaching Assistant. My responsibilities in these positions included aiding in the development of students' conceptual and laboratory skills necessary to succeed in the courses.
In evaluation of these experiences, it is evident to me that I have undergone personal growth as an aspiring educator and researcher. Providing assistance to other students has given me insight to the inherent diversity through which a student's learning and comprehension may be facilitated. My ability to articulate concepts, techniques, and protocols of varying degrees of complexity has matured tremendously over the course these experiences. I have seen the tremendous diversity of means through which students achieve comprehension and held myself to a high level of dynamism as an educator in order to match my approach with the unique nature of each individual's learning process.
One of the keys to my success as a chemistry student is my university's emphasis on conceptual understanding as opposed to rote memorization. The development of a sense of intuition based on fundamental principles lends itself greatly to approaching novel problems and serves as a basis from which complex topics are most effectively built. Emphasis of this approach is invaluable to many subjects in math and science such as Organic Chemistry, where the large volume of content renders rote memorization impractical and ineffective.