I graduated from Swarthmore College in May with degrees in History and Spanish. I have since returned home to New York City and work primarily as an actor, although I am planning to enroll in the Latin American Studies program at the University of Oxford in September. During my junior year of college, I studied abroad in Granada, Spain where I lived with a host family and taught English at a local middle school. This experience of preparing for a class lesson and standing by the chalkboard in front of my students changed my understanding of both language and teaching. While one certainly needs a solid foundation of grammar and vocabulary basics, of equal importance are day-to-day examples and case studies that ground theory in fact. I believe this lesson applies to every academic discipline and I use it when instructing students in European History or English Literature or the PSAT Critical Reading section. In order to achieve a firm grasp over any particular subject matter, one must understand both the raw data - dates, names, sentence structures, vocabulary - as well as the times in life when theoretical knowledge must be made into practical experience. When teaching, I make an effort to pair the fundamentals with interesting and insightful examples that demonstrate why those fundamentals are important. In my spare time I like to read and write and play golf, soccer, and squash.