Tutor Spotlight: Casey Y.
Meet Casey.
Casey specializes in science tutoring and SAT/ACT prep, drawing on extensive teaching experience to adapt to each student’s needs with patience and empathy. They build confidence and self-sufficiency by identifying strengths, addressing challenges, and making learning engaging – even sparking a passion for subjects students once disliked!
What's one thing you love about tutoring?
I love that you’re always learning! It challenges me to consider even the concepts with which I feel most comfortable from new angles, so that I can communicate those concepts to students in the ways that resonate most deeply with them.
How do you keep students engaged During tutoring sessions?
Having them engage with material outside a computer screen, like looking at a book on their shelf for examples of comma uses, or trying to derive a mathematical relationship for themself on their own paper. Engaging with different media and using all one’s senses helps make memories stand apart from each other.and stick better in the brain.
What's one study tip every student should know?
Don’t let failure discourage you! Even the most competent people in their fields have failed a test or two (or several), or struggled with the material in its earlier stages. Often, things that you struggle with at lower levels become unimportant the higher you go, or the ways you’ve learned to overcome them are what enables you to succeed beyond that initial hurdle.
What was your favorite class in high school and why?
Either Astronomy — as Carl Sagan put it, “our feeblest contemplations of the cosmos stir us — there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.” — or Political and Social Philosphy. I really enjoyed examining my own beliefs through various paradigms and it deepened my understanding of the systems that shape our lives, for better or for worse.
Can you share an example of a student you were proud of for reaching their goals?
One of my students from when I first started tutoring fought their way through their first middle school chemistry class, the one I was helping them with. They eventually made it through OChem with a stellar performance and are finishing up their med school residency.
What do you admire about your students?
Their dedication, their independence, and most of all, their ability to ask for help! That’s often one of the hardest things to do, and it takes a great deal of self awareness and initiative.
