William Scott-Curtis

Biography

I was born and raised in Santa Cruz County, where I attended Cabrillo College as a concurrently enrolled high school student. After graduating from Cabrillo with degrees in Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science, and Political Science, I transferred to UCLA and completed my BS in Applied Mathematics. I returned to UCLA the next year to complete my MS in Statistics, where I conducted graduate research designing and validating novel survey sampling methodologies for hard-to-reach populations. Over the course of my academic career, I accumulated over 5 years of experience in STEM instruction, primarily in Precalculus and Calculus.

I started tutoring as a community college student, where I supported my fellow STEM students in their Precalculus classes. I quickly learned that guiding a student toward success in a math class relied just as much on building self-confidence as it did on knowledge. Many of my students felt anxious and overwhelmed by math, and sharing my experience, passion, and skills nurtured their confidence and built a strong foundation for Calculus courses and beyond. That foundation is built of both knowledge and self-belief. To succeed in hard math classes like Precalculus, Calculus, and those beyond, students have to rely not only on the knowledge they have gained, but belief in their ability to continue growing their knowledge. My goal in tutoring is to build that foundation for each of my students. Seeing a student recognize the power of the foundation they have built is what made me fall in love with tutoring mathematics. I am excited to build a foundation of knowledge and passion in math with my students!

As I worked my way through courses at community college, I expanded my tutoring to multivariate calculus, differential equations, linear algebra, statistics, physics, chemistry, and computer science, and by the time I graduated, I had been voted tutoring center’s “Most Helpful Tutor” twice in a row. After finishing my Bachelor’s degree in 2022, I joined AJ Tutoring, where I tutored Precalculus and Calculus academically and also did AP Calculus AB/BC test preparation.

When I’m not tutoring, I enjoy cycling up into the Santa Cruz Mountains, watching old films, and backpacking around this beautiful state.