Math Tutor for SAT Prep, 99th percentile SAT score

Tais S.

Hello! My name is Tais, and I am a pre-medical student at the University of Washington studying public health and chemistry. Before college, I attended a competitive private high school, and I struggled most in the same subjects that I dedicate most of my time to studying today- chemistry, and a lot of math-based science.

Although I did learn the most effective study methods for myself over time, and dedicated a lot of energy to improving my focus when learning new material, I owe much of my academic improvement to my incredible general chemistry professor my first year of college. He did not assume that any of his students had any previous knowledge of the material taught in class, and he used our questions as opportunities for explaining the greater context of subjects and even how they applied to other fields of study.

While in high school, I spent a year as a math tutor for younger students in Algebra 1, 2, and Precalculus, and helped them not only improve their overall grades in their classes but also score much better on standardized tests. As many of my students had initially fallen behind on academics, my approach was to test their knowledge on a subject until I found the point where they had not fully understood a topic, or missed it completely. This way, I could meet students exactly where they were at, and make the most efficient use of time while using any extra time to go beyond normal class material to explore tangent topics. I still believe in this method for connecting with students and personalizing a learning plan, but I now also implement an important teaching strategy that my own professor used: using the course material as a lens to understand the world, rather than using the world to simply understand the course.