I'm Benjamin! I am an oceanographer by training (PhD in Oceanography and M.S. in Marine Biology from Scripps Institution of Oceanography), so I wear many hats—biologist, geochemist, statistician, etc.—but my favorite hat of all is teaching. I have been tutoring math and science since I was in high school myself, and with more than a decade of teaching experience under my belt (teaching middle school through graduate school in classroom settings and one-on-one), I can say confidently that the...
I'm Benjamin! I am an oceanographer by training (PhD in Oceanography and M.S. in Marine Biology from Scripps Institution of Oceanography), so I wear many hats—biologist, geochemist, statistician, etc.—but my favorite hat of all is teaching. I have been tutoring math and science since I was in high school myself, and with more than a decade of teaching experience under my belt (teaching middle school through graduate school in classroom settings and one-on-one), I can say confidently that the number one job of a teacher is to give their students self-confidence. I have never had a student whom I didn't honestly believe to be intelligent and highly capable of learning challenging concepts!
Math and science are 3% memorization and 97% problem solving; the key to success is finding the mental tools that work consistently and reliably for *your* individual brain. As a tutor, it is my job to guide you through this process, which can require patience and trial-and-error. I excel at using the low-pressure, one-on-one environment of tutoring sessions to help my students build focus and confidence, so that ultimately, they trust their own abilities enough to get themselves to the finish line. My students have gone from failing classes to earning A's! They routinely get 5's on AP exams. But my proudest achievement is when my students go from believing a concept is overwhelming and impenetrable to seeing it as a problem that is solvable and even fun!
My teaching experience includes extensive one-on-one math and science tutoring (high school through college), classroom teaching (marine biology and physical oceanography), middle school MATCHCOUNTS coaching, and math support for educationally disadvantaged children of migrant agricultural workers. I am also a native, bilingual English and French speaker, and I have taught both languages in one-on-one and classroom settings.
