One-on-One Science Tutoring: Ace Classes and Tests With Foundation Learning

Eric is pursuing his Master’s degree and  PhD from the University of Illinois Chicago. He has an extensive background in education, working as a Graduate Teaching Assistant at The University of British Columbia and the University of Illinois Chicago. Throughout his career, Eric has assisted undergraduates with graduate/professional admissions and helped high school students with their undergraduate applications.

Eric has dedicated his career to education due to his deep curiosity about the world around him. He is passionate about coaching college applicants and strives to help students access an environment where they can shape their unique education, often for the first time. Recognizing the immense stress of the admissions process at every level, from undergraduate to doctorate, Eric understands that students must market themselves and create materials while juggling current courses, jobs, and hobbies. Having personally benefited from the guidance of others, he appreciates the comfort and support that coaching provides. 

His ultimate goal as a college admissions coach is to provide direction for successful applications and offer unwavering support and guidance during this exciting and transformative period in students' lives. As a coach, one of Eric’s greatest strengths is his strong personal connection to the university environment. It allows him to help students discover their intrinsic motivations for pursuing higher education, enabling them to craft compelling narratives for their applications. His diverse educational background also allows him to relate to various students and cater to their needs. 

Eric’s solid professional background in coaching and teaching helps him approach students with experience, confidence, and a sense of security. Notably, candidates Eric has coached have gained acceptance to prestigious institutions such as Caltech, Dartmouth, Harvard, and Columbia.

In his spare time, Eric enjoys practicing and coaching Taekwondo, rock climbing and running, playing the piano and guitar, embarking on hiking and backpacking adventures, and indulging his passion for travel.

Rhea completed her Bachelor of Science in Biomolecular Engineering and Bioinformatics with honors at UC Santa Cruz and is currently completing her Master of Business and Science in Drug Discovery and Development at Rutgers University. In college, she won both the Dean's and Chancellor's Awards for her senior thesis, adding to her rich research profile. She also has six years of tutoring experience, including being a STEM tutor at the high school and college level and being an academic coach for various math and science courses. Rhea  has helped students get into several prestigious schools, including UC Berkeley, UCLA, Stanford, Cornell, and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Rhea deeply values education and understands its profound impact on shaping future success. She is dedicated to empowering all students to reach their full potential, whether it's mastering subjects or achieving top scores on the SAT for college admission. She specializes in ACT and SAT tutoring as well as math, biology, chemistry, and English at any level, including AP. 

Rhea’s tutoring style is fun but focused. She avoids long lectures and creates an interactive, judgment-free learning environment where positive reinforcement and encouraging words are used to motivate students. She kicks off sessions with a thorough content overview, providing examples and walking students through problem-solving techniques, with a particular focus on efficiency. After presenting the material, she encourages students to recap what they've learned and ask questions. Practice problems follow, but Rhea ensures students prioritize understanding the problem-solving strategies rather than simply arriving at the correct answer. Once students have a solid grasp of the strategies, she shifts her focus to accuracy and timing, ensuring they're fully equipped to tackle any challenge that comes their way.

Rhea is adept at helping students tackle learning obstacles head-on. When faced with challenging material, she understands the importance of shifting perspectives or simply taking a break to reset. Rhea often asks students about their interests or weekend plans, allowing them to take a breather and return to the material with a renewed sense of focus and motivation. Rather than overwhelming students with continuous content or labeling concepts as "easy" or "hard," Rhea focuses on simplifying the material and providing relatable examples or analogies. By doing so, students can approach the content with a refreshed mindset and greater openness. Moreover, Rhea emphasizes the significance of embracing mistakes as part of the learning process. She reassures students that it's perfectly normal not to grasp concepts immediately and encourages them to view errors as opportunities for growth. 

In her free time, Rhea likes to dance, take pictures, go boxing, find new hiking spots, and travel. She has been to over 15 countries!

Saied holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Computer Science with a minor in Mathematics from Rutgers University and a Master of Science in Applied and Computational Mathematics from Johns Hopkins University. He also has a Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (CELTA) from Cambridge University. Saied has over eight years of experience as a tutor and has helped hundreds of high school and college students. His passion for tutoring began during his childhood in the Jamaican school system, where he experienced the opportunity to substitute for a mathematics teacher for three months.

Saied specializes in ACT and SAT tutoring, all math courses from Pre-Algebra to Calculus II, and English composition. His passion for tutoring is driven by his love for imparting knowledge and helping students master the world of mathematics. Engaging in one-on-one interactions, understanding each student's learning style and interests, and presenting content in a way that resonates with them and sparks those light bulb moments are what continually motivates him to strive for excellence as an educator.

Saied's tutoring style is characterized by a dynamic partnership with students. In the initial conversation, he strives to understand each student's preferred learning style and identifies any knowledge gaps they may have. Based on this assessment, he develops a customized plan to address their needs. Recognizing that some mathematical topics can be abstract, Saied incorporates real-world applications to solidify concepts and encourage students to apply what they have learned. By fostering this iterative process, Saied nurtures mathematical maturity and helps students make connections between different mathematical ideas, informing his approach to introducing new content. What truly drives Saied is witnessing his students' success, confidence, and motivation. Students' genuine smiles of accomplishment further fuel his passion for assisting others in achieving their academic goals.

Saied's greatest strengths as a tutor lie in his background in applied mathematics, which enables him to present content in a relevant and applicable way. He ensures students grasp the core foundations necessary to tackle any mathematical challenge. Additionally, Saied is skilled at pushing his students to excel. During tutoring sessions, his primary focus is ensuring the concepts are deeply understood and internalized so that when presented with external content-related problems, students glide through with ease. 

When he isn’t tutoring, Saied enjoys hiking, chasing beautiful skylines and waterfalls, and learning new skills. He is certainly one for adventure, as he swam with sharks when he was only 13 years old and has been skydiving!