I grew up with parents who encouraged in me a love of mathematics and of teaching people. After graduating from UC Santa Cruz with B.A.s in pure mathematics and in economics, I decided to pursue combining these two great loves into one.

The basis of my tutoring approach is that the more you teach math, the more you learn it. It does not matter if you are your only audience: as long as you keep learning, explaining, and retracing the logic which underlies problems, theorems, and concepts, you will continue to learn. In fact, I initially began tutoring in college as a way to study. I realized that if I could not prove and teach my reasoning behind the various mathematical processes I had to use, I perhaps did not truly understand the reasoning myself. So, I offered help to my peers and began gaining and refining skills in both math and teaching. I discovered that I enjoyed the opportunity to realize people’s strengths and mitigate their shortcomings.

I’ve found that individualized sessions really help a student achieve their potential. Every student has their own strengths and their own genius, and it is my job to help them realize it. Getting to know someone is the same as getting to know their thought processes and becoming familiar with the tools of reasoning they regularly employ. The 1-on-1 format allows me to identify for each student the strategies and skills that could use a little sharpening. Building upon their comforts is a great way to expand students’ zone of proximal development. Therefore, I work with my students to apply processes and methods they really grasp to problems that might seem a little foreign. Together, we look at multiple solutions to the same problem and pick the ones the student is comfortable with while also drawing comparisons to alternatives and more challenging problems in order to expand their toolkit.

When I am not tutoring, I enjoy writing, playing music, creating digital art, enjoying anime, and playing video games.