A few weeks ago, I was supposed to have 2 exams in the same Friday. It took me a long while to realize that they were a lot harder than I initially thought they would be, so I was incredibly behind with studying. On Thursday before the test, I was overwhelmed by how much study I still had to do. And I was supposed to work for 2 hours as a tutor at the Academic Skills Center. I was happy that I didn’t have any appointments, to get some study done. BUT just a few hours before my shift was supposed to begin, I got an email with the subject:

On-line Appointment Notification

YOU MUST BE KIDDING ME! I NEED TO STUDY!

I went to the Center filled with negative energy and anxiety. I didn’t even care that the appointment was for Organic Chemistry, my favorite subject among those I tutor for. Anyway, I got there, and for the first hour I strategically sit near someone who is tutoring a girl in my class for one of my exams, to eavesdrop while studying for the other exam, hoping that I will be more productive this way (by the way, it totally didn’t work! don’t try studying for 2 things in the same time!)

In the second hour, my tutee arrives. It turns out that she also had an exam the next day. After all, it made sense, it was the first test period. I soon forgot about my tests and started helping her with a practice test. My anxiety somehow was replaced by my typical enthusiasm for organic chemistry and my desire to help my tutee see how fun and logic organic chemistry is (if you don’t agree with me, I’m willing to take all the time in the world to show you why I’m right, or point you to the right people in the UR Chemistry Department to do so, for instance, the 3 professors I had for organic. But I digress.) I had so much fun trying to pretend that her her yogurt cup was an ethane molecule and explain free rotation around a single bond based on that, that I forgot about my tests until the appointment was over. And then, when she was almost ready to leave, she told me some magic words:

“Thanks so much! You’ve been so helpful! YOU’RE SUCH A GOOD TUTOR!”

Wow! I was in 7th heaven!  I suddenly didn’t care if I was going to fail my tests the next day, because I felt like I helped someone ace her test. Tutoring gave me a reason to smile when my exams were almost making me cry. I was thinking that no matter what happens, at least I did something good. (By the way, going to my tests the next day with that relaxed state of mind, thinking that things are gonna be ok no matter what, helped me forget about any anxiety and concentrate during the exams. I got some very high grades considering the time I spent studying for them.)

Because I wanted so badly to get the job as a tutor, I signed up to tutor a lot of subjects: General Chemistry, Organic Chemistry I and II, Calc I and II, Econ 101, IQS, Intro to Environmental Studies and Environmental Ethics. So far I have an unusual success as an econ tutor (there is nothing surprising about organic chemistry). However, this job as a tutor is not always a piece of cake. Once, I had a Calc student and I needed to explain to him what is absolute value, a pre-calc concept that is so familiar to me, that so far I always took it for granted, and never thought about breaking it down to explain it to other people. I don’t want to be in the shoes of my tutees when a tutor like me is so used to a concept, that doesn’t know how to explain it, but I think such experiences also help me better understand the complexity beyond things that seem simple to me.

I remembered about that when more recently I got another email from another girl I helped with organic chemistry. It sounds like this:

“Hi Ana,

I just wanted to thank you again, I got a 95 :) You really helped me to understand the chair conformations; there was a problem on that and I’m so glad we went over it. Hope you had a good weekend!

Best,

(my tutee)”

I am actually feeling incredibly good when I see that I help people improve. That “Oh, I get it now” after an explanation is starting to mean a lot to me. Before starting tutoring in a formal setting, I knew I wanted to do research as a career, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to work in an academic or industrial setting. But now my number one career option is becoming a university professor where I can share my knowledge with other students all the time.