Calculus, biology, and German,taught by a Brown master's graduate

Tobias H.

I hold a Master of Science in Biotechnology from Brown University, where I graduated in 2023 with a 4.0 GPA, and a Bachelor of Science in Computational and Applied Mathematical Sciences from Plymouth State University, where I graduated summa cum laude in 2021 with a 3.75 GPA, four semesters on the President's List, and the Biology Research Award. I earned A grades in Calculus III, Differential Equations, Linear Algebra, and Probability and Statistics, and I am a co-author on two peer-reviewed biology papers. German is my first language; I grew up in Heilbronn and completed my secondary schooling there.

I tutor calculus, trigonometry, and differential equations, the core of my mathematics degree, and biology, which I studied through coursework in genetics, pharmacology, and drug discovery and a master's thesis on T cell signaling. In German I work on conversation, reading, and everyday usage.

My teaching has been one-on-one and in small groups rather than in a classroom. From 2018 to 2023, as an undergraduate and then a graduate student, I was regularly the one in a study group who re-explained our mathematics and biology coursework to classmates who were stuck, students aged roughly eighteen to thirty. At Brown I trained fellow students in laboratory techniques one at a time, standing beside them through a full procedure until they could run it without me.

When a student is lost, I do not re-explain from the beginning, because the explanation that failed once usually fails again. I ask questions until I can see where the understanding actually broke, then explain from that point in a different order, often with an example from the student's own field, since many biology students meet calculus only as a requirement. The student then works problems while I watch, I correct the one thing that is actually going wrong, and I step back as soon as they no longer need me. In German I build fluency through conversation and reading rather than grammar drills. I am glad to talk before a first lesson.