FEATURED TUTOR: CELEENA

We sat down with Celeena, who is one of our amazing math and science tutors! Celeena is teaching a range of MentorMeet classes this summer, from Majoring in Psychology, to Fat Studies (an exploration of sizeism), to Macrame.

How did you get into teaching/tutoring?

I guess it was a serendipitous event. I wanted to go to grad school and do research, so I was at a coffee shop just applying to research positions. Through a friend of a friend, I met Nicolette (the Chicago Branch Director) at that same coffee shop, and we really hit it off. I thought to myself, “Why would I apply for research jobs when I could do something I know I like, which is working with people?” That’s how I got into tutoring. I have a passion for education, and I think that just makes tutoring really fun. 

What is your favorite thing to work on with students?

I love helping students hate word problems less. I am very passionate about this because I personally love word problems. I would do them all day every day if I could, but most people I meet hate them, so I have taken it upon myself to help others hate them less. I do this by first explaining that a lot of it is psychological, and the way the questions are phrased is designed to stump you. The way to solve them is by taking them apart, because then they become a lot more manageable and less challenging. This is also a good life lesson for students: problems that seem huge and confusing are often a lot more manageable when you are able to break them down into parts and tackle them bit by bit. 

What have you learned through your work in education that you feel is most important to share?

I think it's so important to instill a passion for information at a very young age. It doesn’t even have to be knowledge, just that love for continued learning. The students who I see struggling the hardest are the ones who don’t have that passion: the ones who are just forced to be there, and don't have an interest in being there. I can't force someone to have that passion, but when it’s there it makes learning so much easier and more enjoyable. I think it is harder to instill that passion as people get older. I always try to encourage students to find their passion and run with it. 

What’s something we don’t know about you?

Maybe only Andrea and Monica know this about me, because I talked about this in my interview when I first got the job: I really enjoy taking care of plants. I’m starting to expand my collection lately. I used to be more focused on outdoor plants, but now I’ve gotten really into indoor plants. I don’t have a favorite plant, but I really like anything that's a string of something: String of Hearts, String of Pearls, etc. I want to have all of them, and I don’t have any!