Subjects
Some more details about the subjects I offer can be found below. Courses within a subject are listed in order from lowest to highest level, with high school courses listed before university courses. Click on a subject to skip to a section.
Chemistry
Honors Chemistry
This is a high school chemistry course that some students take before trying out AP Chemistry. The topics covered are often the same as the AP course, but with a little less depth. If asked to teach this subject, I will often try to set the student up to have an easy time with AP Chemistry in the following year.
AP Chemistry
This is one of my commonly requested courses. If a student knows they want to do something science-related, but they’re not yet sure what exactly, then they can’t go wrong with chemistry. Chemistry is the central science; it ties into all of the other natural sciences (biology, geology, and physics). Even if a student has no intention of working in a lab, chemistry will teach a lot of core science skills (such as graphical analysis and spatial reasoning) that are easily transferable to other fields. It’s not that rare for my AP Chemistry students to start with me before the beginning of a new school year because the amount of content to cover in the course is hard to fit into standard 36 weeks that teachers are given to work with. A lot of teachers tend to cut the last chapter or two to cover the rest of the material thoroughly. Other teachers tend to go too fast, covering all the content, but without enough time for most students to become proficient. My approach to chemistry is one that emphasizes proficiency and makes it a point to go over the math that is often glossed over in the typical AP Chemistry classroom.
General Chemistry (University)
This university-level chemistry course is usually taught to first-year students who major in chemistry, biology, medicine, nursing, or other related fields. It’s nearly identical to the AP Chemistry course content, except that it is stricter on the topic of significant figures and may include topics such as molecular orbital theory and crystal field theory, which are outside of the scope of the AP Chemistry exam. The course often includes a lab component, and I’m happy to help with proofreading lab reports (as long as students don’t expect me to end up writing their lab reports for them, of course).
Physics
Honors Physics
This course is often taken in early high school by students who aren’t ready for (or aren’t interested in) AP Physics. The course topics vary depending on the curriculum set by the student’s school, but it often covers all the topics seen in both AP Physics 1 and AP Physics 2 with a lower emphasis on math skills. If a student taking this course shows promise, I might encourage them to sign up for AP Physics.
AP Physics 1
This is one of the more popular subjects I teach. AP Physics 1 is often the first physics course my students have ever taken. It is an algebra-based course that requires some geometry and basic trigonometry. It is a course focused solely on mechanics, the branch of physics that involves motion, force, energy, momentum, and rotation (among other things). I typically start this course with some algebra and geometry review to make sure that students go into it with the math skills needed to master it. I tend to spend an especially long time on the topic of force, which I consider to be the most important topic in all of physics.
AP Physics 2
This is a subject I rarely teach. Many students who complete AP Physics 1 usually move on to AP Physics C. This algebra-based course is for students who want a broader range of topics with less depth. It covers a little bit of everything: electricity, magnetism, waves, optics, heat, and modern physics. I would mainly recommend this course for science enthusiasts who don’t plan on pursuing a career that requires stronger math and physics skills. For students planning on a career in medicine, engineering, or physics, I would only recommend this course if you have yet to take calculus. While the course is less demanding in terms of math skills, there are still a lot of concepts that can often be a challenge for students, and I often still point my students towards the math to help them make sense of said concepts.
AP Physics C: Mechanics
This is another popular course that I get a lot of requests for. For brevity, I will refer to it as “AP Mech”. AP Mech is a calculus-based very similar to AP Physics 1. It covers all the same topics, but with some calculus added to the mix. Students who take this course will usually be taking AP calculus during the same year, but even if they’re not, I will gladly spend a few lessons covering the basic calculus skills needed for the course. For students who take AP Physics 1 with me before taking this course, AP Mech will mostly be an intensive review course where I challenge them with problems that even I sometimes struggle with. Despite being calculus-based, my students learn from this course that algebra still has a lot of staying power and that trying to use calculus on everything is not always the best idea. In fact, it is quite possible for many students to get a 5 (maximum score) on the AP Mech exam without knowing or using any calculus at all!
AP Physics C: Electricity & Magnetism
This course is not commonly requested because students tend to graduate high school before they have the chance to sign up for it. For brevity, I will refer to it as “AP Elec”. Just like the AP Mech (AP Physics C: Mechanics) course, this is a calculus-based physics course. It is either taken in a full year after completing AP Mech or taken in the same year as AP Mech (one semester for AP Mech, followed by one semester for AP Elec). The use of calculus is far more common in this course than it is in AP Mech. This course will also require a lot of spatial reasoning (visualizing objects and events in 3D), so I tend to put a lot of emphasis on that through making sure to draw good diagrams and gradually becoming less dependent on visualization tools that won’t be available to students during their tests. For those who have the opportunity to take this course, I would recommend it to students pursuing careers in medicine and engineering. Students looking to work in technology might also find this course to be helpful, although they might be better served by the broader content of AP Physics 2.
General Physics (University)
This course is often taken by university students as a science elective. These students are usually not pursuing a career directly related to science, so the course tends to focus on breadth rather than depth. Topics covered in this course are similar to AP Physics 1 and AP Physics 2. It is usually taught as two separate courses, taking one semester each. When I get asked to help with this course, it’s usually for homework help or preparing for an upcoming exam. I sometimes get surprised by a few of the homework or review problems that I end up seeing, but I usually figure things out and come back with a good explanation once I’ve had some time to think about it after the tutoring session. This is why planning early is highly recommended if you believe you might need my help in this course.
Mechanics (University)
This university course is calculus-based. Topics are similar to what is taught in AP Physics C: Mechanics, but it tends to all be taught in a single semester. Students requesting my help with this course are usually seeking homework help and/or review for mid-term and final exams. They are typically majoring in science or a related field, and they often handle a lot on their own, leaving only the really tough problems for me to help with. This rarely gives me trouble because I know my mechanics really well, but I would still recommend planning ahead in case there is something I will have to follow up on after a tutoring session.
Electricity & Magnetism (University)
This university course is calculus-based. Topics are similar to what is taught in AP Physics C: Electricity & Magnetism, but tends to all be taught in a single semester. Students requesting my help with this course are usually seeking homework help and/or review for mid-term and final exams. They are typically majoring in science or a related field. I’ve found that students who ask for my assistance with this course will often have trouble with visualizing the scenarios described in their homework problems, or are in need of some calculus review to help get them through the course, so I tend to focus on those areas first.
Math
Precalculus / Trigonometry
This course is usually taken at the same time that my students are taking one of the AP science courses that I cover. Most of my students only request occasional help with it while they spend most meetings with me focused on their science course. The course is mainly a review of algebra with some more depth, although it does cover some new skills such as working with complex numbers or conic sections. As for trigonometry, it is usually presented as part of precalculus, but can sometimes be offered as its own separate course. Regardless of which course it is, I teach with an emphasis on skills that will need to be retained if the student plans on taking calculus. I’ve had my fair share of students who struggled with calculus solely because they had forgotten topics and formulas from precalculus, so I’m keen on trying to prevent that for students that ask for my help with this course.
AP Calculus (AB/BC)
This is another fairly common course for me to teach, usually alongside a calculus-based physics course. The AB version of the course covers the content of the typical Calculus 1 course at most universities, except that it spans a whole school year. In that same amount of time, the BC version of the course covers all the content of the AB version, along with Calculus 2 content. Common struggles that students have in this course tend to stem from content that was forgotten, poorly taught, or not taught at all in precalculus. For the AB students (as well as first-semester BC students), I tend to see difficulties with remembering important factorizations (such as the sum and difference of cubes) as well as a failure to remember important trigonometric identities (namely the Pythagorean identities). The BC students tend to struggle with the topic of sequences and series, usually due to the topic not being covered in their precalculus course. For these reasons, I will often recommend some review of precalculus for students who come to me for calculus help.
Calculus 1 (University)
This university course introduces calculus. Typically in a single semester, it introduces limits, the concept of the derivative, the rules for finding derivatives, applications of derivative, the concept of the integral, and a few integration rules and applications. This is often sufficient for calculus-based physics courses, but only up to a point. It is of utmost importance to have a good grasp of derivatives and integrals by the end of this course because they will be needed for the Calculus 2 course. If I feel that a student hasn’t reached proficiency in those skills, I will advise them to review during the summer or winter break before moving on to the next course.
Calculus 2 (University)
This course builds on the topics covered in Calculus 1 by starting you off with a lot of new rules and techniques for finding integrals. There will eventually come a point where students need to develop a strategy for deciding (at a glance) which technique is worth trying, and that process is made much harder if they haven’t mastered the basics from Calculus 1. The course then introduces ideas such as parametric and polar equations (which become more important in the multivariable calculus course), followed by some more applications of integrals before students often get stuck on the topic of sequences and series. That’s usually the point where students come to me for some advice on strategy, for which I tend to give a long list of examples that usually helps everything fall into place in their minds.
Multivariable Calculus
This course is sometimes called “Calculus 3” or “Multivariate Calculus”, and is the final calculus course for a lot of science students in university. Students who make it this far into the world of math will usually have their algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and calculus skills mastered to a high level of competence. The struggle often comes from the amount of 3-dimensional thinking that needs to be done in this course, as well as the frequent need to work with vectors and new coordinate systems. These ideas and concepts get introduced briefly before the course moves on, leaving little time for students to master them. Because of this, my meetings with students for this course will often have the goal of simply making sense of a single big idea or concept. Despite the pressure to keep up with the professor's pace, I try to go slow enough to address any major points of confusion. Students tend to catch up pretty quickly after that.