Interviewing Acakid’s February Tutor of the Month!

We have chosen Anna Hu to be our February Tutor of the Month! She stands out as someone who is enthusiastic and hardworking. A biochemistry major at St. Bonaventure University, Anna has been tutoring with Acakid for three years while also tutoring at her university. When she is not tutoring, Anna can be found figure skating or playing the piano!

We asked Anna six questions to get to know her better as a tutor. 

1. What are your strengths as a tutor? 

I believe my strength as a tutor stems from my personal struggles from studying. When I tutor, I try to think about my personal experience to connect with my tutee to build a strong, personal relationship with them. Besides the material I am covering, I also aim to build my tutee’s confidence in the subject matter by providing ample opportunity to ask questions and methods to improve study skills. 

2. How have you grown as a tutor over the years? 

Definitely! In the beginning, I had a difficult time connecting with my students. My first experience in tutoring was for first grade Japanese language, and it was really hard for me to explain concepts in a way that they could easily understand. I eventually adopted the mindset of thinking about how I would’ve liked to be taught at that age, and the things that would’ve helped me learn better; in this case, through games. Since my success with connecting with the first graders then, I always think back to that time and I have continued to go through the thought process of how best to connect with my students over the years

3. What do you work on with your students? 

I try to work on deeper understanding of topics with my students. Because I mainly tutor math and science, a lot of the topics I teach are things that require rote memorization of facts or methods in solving problems. While just memorizing can probably get any student to a passable minimum, I believe that in order to excel, it is important for students to continue asking questions to understand topics from multiple angles. Not only will this exercise prep students better to be able to attack questions on exams, it will also help garner inquisitive thinking processes that are important for things beyond schoolwork. 

4. What are their goals and how are you working on accomplishing them?

Their primary goals are to understand the class material better to perform better on exams. I help them reach this goal by providing them extra practice problems and asking new, but related questions that aim to have them think about the topic or issue through a different perspective. By doing so, they have an even more complete understanding of the topic and are less likely to have a “mind blank” moment when taking the exam. 

5. When have you been extremely proud of your student? 

I’m always extremely proud of my students when they have an “aha” moment. As a tutor, I try my best to convey the material in a way that’s easy to understand, but some topics are inherently difficult. To me, the grades that they get after working with me isn’t the most important thing, but rather the confidence my students start to build in the subjects they struggled in, which motivates them to continue working just as hard. 

6. What do you enjoy about working with Acakid? 

My mission is always to help other students who need help, but time and physical location are limiting factors for me sometimes. So, what I enjoy the most about Acakid is the ability to work remotely! For example, two summers ago, I was in Japan for my internship, yet I was still able to tutor because Acakid provided a platform for me to connect with tutees. Tutoring is a great experience not only for the tutee but also the tutor, and I’m sure all of the other tutors in Acakid can agree with me on that! Thank you to Acakid for providing me the opportunity to tutor!