Find Private & Affordable Science Tutoring
When do you want to start?
Sophia D.
Private tutor in Stony Brook, NY
Education
Post-baccalaureate Pre-health student at Stony Brook University GPA: 4.0 Year: 3 Ranked 2nd out of 800 students in Organic Chemistry II Ranked 5th out of 800 students in Organic Chemistry I Received 3 Academic Performance Awards in Organic Chemistry I and II Stony Brook University Undergraduate B.A in Fine Art, Art History & Criticism, 2012 Minors in Digital Arts and Business Management GPA: 3.7 International Exchange Programs: University of Seoul, South Korea Studied: Environmental Sculpture and Computer Programming University of Rome, Italy Studied: Art History in Italian Renaissance
Experience
Hi there, my name is Sophia and I have been a Teaching Assistant in College and AP-level Biology for 2 years. I am currently an organic chemistry TA. I am currently tutoring undergraduate freshmen and sophomores in chemistry and in organic chemistry. I have also been tutoring 10th grade physics since the summer. I tutored SAT Math in the summer. During my extensive travel in Asia and my year spent studying in South Korea, I taught English to graduate engineering students whose English levels were initially that of middle school students. At the end of my teaching, they passed their TOEFL and TESL exams (English proficiency exams to qualify them to apply to jobs outside of Korea, especially in the United States and any English-speaking country) with flying colors. They were much more confident and would speak loudly and proudly to university colleagues, professors, and employers! I found that the most rewarding experience is when my students not only do well but more fundamentally, discover their love for the subject matter: physics, chemistry, biology, etc. Their appreciation and curiosity to continually learn and ask questions lead to their understanding of the material: to see what, why, and how things work. In a previous most memorable tutoring experience, I was tutoring some students for their biology exam and one of the students was different from the others: she couldn't learn just from reading the textbook or from listening to the professor. The material just didn't stick - I sat with her and we talked about other things: her hobbies and interests. I learned she liked playing tennis but was initially horrible at it. I asked her what kept her going for the last 3 years. She said she wanted to get better and she also had a motivator: she wanted to teach her little sister. She ended up keeping up with tennis because she wanted to be able to explain the concept, the techniques, the sport to her sister. At that point, I gave her an assignment for next time: to explain to me what the importance of the cytoskeleton is as if I was HER student. Because of this outside motivation, she ended up retaining the material we went over so that she was able to explain it to me, to draw it out for me, and to answer my questions to her. I found that I learned a lot from her and my other students: everyone is different and everyone learns differently. They all need someone who is patient and willing to work with them in different ways, not only from a textbook but through real life examples. They need to feel fearless in answering a question: to be encouraged to try to connect concepts together - and to be guided, not pushed, into the right direction!
Subject Expertise
Science, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Organic Chemistry, Microbiology, Earth Science, Math, SAT Math, Trigonometry, Geometry, PreCalculus, Calculus 1, English language, Study Skills