Maya Belur

Biography

I am from San Jose, California and I attended college at UC Santa Barbara, so I’ve lived in California my whole life (and have been lucky enough to attend college at the beach)! At UCSB, I studied biopsychology. I have always been interested in learning how the brain works, and through my classes I gained a deeper understanding of brain sciences through both biology and psychology. I also had the opportunity to explore several other topics, like chemistry, anthropology, and even playwriting! College taught me the best study methods to ensure a thorough understanding of a topic, even for topics that I went into with no previous knowledge of. 

I have loved science ever since I was in elementary school, when I would watch NOVA documentaries with my dad. Seeing how different scientific concepts could explain the world around me was fascinating for me. In high school, I discovered a love for biology. I love seeing students learn biology because of how applicable it is to daily life. It’s fulfilling to watch students realize how a biological concept is directly related to their life, like how genes get made into proteins and how that can inform traits like eye color or even personality. 

I spent my summers in high school teaching Speech and Debate camp for middle schoolers, and volunteered throughout high school coaching middle schoolers in Debate. My favorite part of camp was being able to see a student’s progress. Though the students in my group started off with different amounts of knowledge about debate and different levels of confidence in public speaking, it was so rewarding to see their confidence grow by the end of the camp until they were all able to perform impromptu speeches in our end-of-camp tournament. Some kids were more shy at first, but with the right coaching, flourished in the tournament. From this experience, I learnt the importance of recognizing that each student has different strengths they bring to the table, and playing to each strength, rather than trying to force a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching. 

AJ Tutoring’s one-on-one format allows me to tailor my tutoring approach to each student. Each student learns differently, and starts off at different levels of confidence in their subject, so it is important to recognize that different students will thrive with different teaching methods. My tutoring philosophy is that it doesn’t matter what the starting point of a student is, because a student can go from having no knowledge in a subject to being totally inspired by it. As a tutor, I know how to start from scratch and break a topic down, identifying problem areas to address so that something that seems confusing and impossible at first can become interesting and fun. 

In my free time, I enjoy reading (especially books by Jane Austen), playing the flute, and hiking with friends.