Med student & former teacher for Biology, Anatomy and Physiology

Zakriye M.

During my gap years, I taught K-12 across all subjects in a school district setting, which gave me hands-on experience adapting my teaching style to different ages, learning styles, and levels of background knowledge. That experience taught me how to break a concept down to its core and rebuild it in a way that actually makes sense to the student in front of me, rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all explanation.

I'm now a medical student at the University of Washington School of Medicine, where I work with human anatomy, physiology, and biology every day, both in the classroom and in clinical settings. During my undergraduate studies, I worked as a research assistant in an infectious disease lab focused on vaccine and antibiotic development, while also completing coursework in biology, biochemistry, microbiology, anatomy, physiology, and biostatistics. In medical school, I've revisited many of these same subjects at a much deeper level, which gives me a strong sense of not just the material itself but how it's typically taught and where students tend to get stuck.

My approach starts with figuring out what's actually confusing a student, whether it's a concept, terminology, or how different pieces fit together, and then rebuilding it using diagrams, analogies, and real examples drawn from my research and clinical training. I find students retain material far better when they understand the "why" behind a process, like why a muscle contracts the way it does or how a feedback loop functions in the body, rather than memorizing isolated facts. Whether you're working through intro biology, anatomy, or physiology, my goal is to help you build real understanding you can carry forward, not just get through the next exam.