Virginia Tech Chemical Engineering student tutoring math and chem

Shackleton M.

I'm a Chemical Engineering student at Virginia Tech pursuing a double minor in Nuclear Engineering and Finance with a 3.60 GPA. My coursework keeps me fluent in the subjects I tutor — Calculus 1 through 3, General and Organic Chemistry, and Mass and Energy Balances, which combines applied chemistry with calculus. This past spring, my Virginia Tech team placed 1st in the USA and 2nd internationally at the AIChE ChemE-Sports Competition, an applied problem-solving event in thermodynamics, kinetics, and process engineering against 96 teams from three continents. It was a useful reminder that the students who do best in technical subjects are not the ones who memorize the most formulas; they are the ones who understand where the formulas come from.
I've been tutoring for about a year, working with students from middle school through college on math and chemistry. My experience spans a mix of settings — one-on-one sessions, small group work, and informal help with classmates and family friends — which has taught me to adjust my pace and explanations to where the student actually is rather than where the curriculum says they should be. Middle schoolers usually need a different kind of explanation than a college student stuck on a problem set, and the ability to shift between those modes is something I've gotten a lot of experience in.
I work through guided examples, ask questions that push the student to do the thinking out loud, and connect new material to what they already know. I'm patient but direct, I'll tell a student honestly where they're losing points and what to focus on, without making them feel bad for asking basic questions, because clarifying the basics is usually what unlocks the harder material. I'm available to tutor algebra, precalculus, all levels of calculus, SAT math, general chemistry, and organic chemistry. Sessions can be in person in the Fairfax area or online.