How to Become an Exemplary Tutor

The best way to teach students begins with cultivating a friendly relationship with them with foundations on trust, confidentiality and respect. Most tutors fail to recognize that students rarely admit that they have issues with their academics and therefore they require help. It is therefore the responsibility of the tutor to create a positive environment which will encourage the student to seek help. To be a good tutor you must earn trust from your students and build conversations. Chatting makes students more comfortable to present their problems. It may seem meaningless though a problem is being solved though the chat. Take a pause within each lesson to have a personal chat with students. This will make them comfortable with you. Empathy will be your main weapon as you feel their pain and have a taste of their predicament. Apart from school work it is important to spend time with your students to establish their weaknesses and make them trust you. Show your students that you care about their welfare by following up with their parents, updating them about the student’s progress. Learning is a process and if your students are to be comfortable with you, you have to be patient and supportive. Sometimes, is wise to slow down a lesson when teaching complex concepts. Always reassure your students that you are there to help them get on the right track. Flexibility is a basic principle of service. Sometimes your students haven’t completed homework which was difficult or require a crash course before exams; always make yourself available in these...

When your Tutors Misbehave

We all know the drill in college: take few units, write a lot of notes, understand a quarter of them, pass most of the units, fail a few, go for holidays and come back next semester to repeat the same mistakes all over again. So you may blame this trend on some of your tutors who seem not to care much of what happens to you in college as long as you attend their classes, submit assignments and show up for exams. Of course it goes without saying that your tutors do not care much; not unless you actively involve them in your business which is 100% up to you to decide whether you want to do that. At times tutors may misbehave with tight deadlines, a “million” assignments, tough CATs and many handouts just to mention a few. These are the times that you feel all pressured up with no time to check on your social life. You miss events, lose friends and it goes without saying that you feel like your world is crumpling right in front of your face. However, it’s not the time to wallow in your troubles; maybe you may just be contributing to your problems. In order to counter this situation, you need to establish a good communication network with your lecturer. Put out your problems clearly and let him know when it is already too much work. However, you do not have to be all nagging to him but just make him understand that you can take no...

How to Make Your Applications Stronger

If you are thinking to apply for grad school this year, you have to realize that you are just about to face stiff competition. Therefore, in order to make a successful application, you have to take note of these things. First, take the highly placed courses. It is very tempting to take the easy courses in college because of senioritis or maybe you want it easy as graduation approaches. However, you should continue to invest your time in high value courses to impress your graduate school admissions officers. Your application will look good with these courses. High majors are always guaranteed to stand out and give you advantage. Let the team admitting you know that you’ve made your research and you are updated on the field that you are interested in. Show that you are interested in issues arising with contention in the industry to display your interest in the field. This gives you an upper hand over all the other students. Applications that make it through are those that have ideas which have originated from outside the classroom. Get an internship before joining grad school in order to get some first-hand experience in the field you are interested in. Alternatively, find some research projects from professors in your department that you can maybe have a look. Being a volunteer during presentations can also help strengthen your application. You also need to get some letters of recommendation to strengthen your application. Finally you need to apply early and submit your application in time if you are to stand a...

Deciding Your Major

More than what seems to be a million times you have been asked by people what you are majoring in, and of course your answer is that you are not decided. The conversation comes to an abrupt halt when you are asked about what interests you because your future is unclear. Research has it that most students change their majors at least three times as a result of being undecided about what they want to do in the future. The fact that you are undecided about what you want to major in the future and you are reading this is actually proof that you are ahead of your peers who do not want to accept such simple facts as these. The fact is that you will have to declare your major soon enough and instead of making a big fuss out of this as if it is a life changing event (not that it isn’t) just take baby steps at it; after all, it’s never that serious. The first thing to do is to handle your college education the smart way. This is by attending classes for a wide range of units so as to have a larger choice when finding your area of interest. Well you might not achieve perfection in studies for the time being but your decision will be more profound. Find out about the classes you attended from your upperclassmen. Find about what they liked and disliked about the different majors but do not dismiss a major just because someone doesn’t like it. After talking to your friends, then rule out the various majors basing...

Basic College Rules

However much you may feel that you are ready to advance from your senior years in high school and ready to deal with all the challenges in college here are some basic unspoken college rules that you must fist come to terms with before you toss yourself into something you’ll regret. There are those principle rules in college like wear a shirt to class, don’t fall asleep in your shoes, attend all exams and do not refer to your lecturers with weird names like “Dad” but advice is the best set of unspoken rules that you will ever need. Don’t wait until you have to learn the hard way that you have to be yourself around people in college. If you follow a foreign path that is not your own then you derives the world the privilege of having enough or rather just the required amount of you. If you are not 100% yourself in college everything will seem hard. It’s really not worth trying to fit in college lest you will have no future advice to give people. Success is a direct precursor of passion. Being passionate about your field will help you ask the appropriate questions that will be relevant in your future life. Do only what feels right when you are hanging out. College social gatherings are one of the few places where you wish rules would be enforced and if you do not become yourself you may end up having people confuse you for someone that you are not. One more thing, “If you have to ask yourself if it’s stupid, then it’s definitely...