Biography

I got my start in the education business back in eigth grade, where I helped my math teacher update his lecture slides to the then new Common Core standards in exchange for 20 dollars an hour and sodas from the teacher’s lounge. As the years went by, I started helping my classmates understand class material and, eventually, I became a private tutor. I’ve also worked for a number of companies doing private as well as group tutoring. I enjoy it because learning is fun, and it’s even more fun to help others make those neural connections.

After graduating high school early, I took some time to “figure myself out.” I ended up back in school at the University of California, Berkeley, studying nuclear engineering. One thing I’ve found is that true understanding takes a while. A student might not fully get what’s going on the first time around, and that’s okay, it’s even expected! Initial intuitions will blossom into conceptual comprehension—I see it a lot with STEM subjects. I like these subjects because it’s fun to teach people to think algorithmically and scientifically. In my sessions, I tend to focus on understanding how a solution is reached, rather than rote memorization of facts. It’s much easier to recall a derivation or solution strategy, rather than a set of equations or facts.

As far back as the 10th grade, I was helping classmates here and there understand their physics coursework. It was usually pro-bono, but I found a few paid opportunities here and there. A bit later, when I started community college, I found work as a professional tutor at Mathnasium, working with elementary and high school students in groups of 2-4. It was a great budget option, marketed as a “math gym,” but because of the group size it was sometimes difficult for a given student to get the help they needed. That is why I love being able to work with students in a one on one format at AJ.

I’ve also spent a lot of time learning to teach in different community colleges. At Cañada College in Redwood City, I’ve worked as an Embedded Peer Instruction Cohort (EPIC) Tutor, and also as a key facilitator in their Physics Jam program. The former is an aide for a given class—I worked with first semester physics, also for about a year. I held sessions after class, focusing on specific problems and answering questions students had. Physics Jam is a one week intensive program for incoming students, where we covered the first month of the physics course that they were about to take. We went over problem sets I designed, did experiments together, and generally had lots of fun.

After I moved, I spent some time as a tutor in the math center at Sierra College in Rocklin. Students could come in and work on their homework, and raise their hand or come to a tutor when they needed help. I mostly helped with homework problems, but now and then I had the opportunity to teach new material or demonstrate a concept.

I can’t stress enough the value of education from a place like AJ Tutoring. Although I have helped students in many arenas of education, I feel that one on one tutor offers the most change in a student’s educational experience.