Sonnie Pribadi, Trig & Calc Tutor

Introduction: College is expensive. Repeating college courses is even more expensive! Nothing satisfies me more than knowing I have helped to save someone from failure. And I find even greater joy when I know I have helped someone achieve above-average performance. How it began? In the beginning of my college days, I took notice of a fellow student who was failing in her grades in Trigonometry. Our professor recommended that she should study with me, since I had a much greater handle on the subject. I did not need studying for my self, but I committed the remaining days we had in the semester to helping her overcome the challenge. I knew the time I had invested had certainly paid off, when I heard the report that her exam grades went from about 30% to about 80%. In the next semester, I helped her to succeed in an engineering math course considered to be the "filter course" to separate the "worthy" from the "unworthy". Today, she repeatedly tells me, "I would not have made it without your help", and "you should become a tutor." I enjoy helping students overcome academic challenges in math, trigonometry, calculus, physics, chemistry, computer programming (C and Mat-Lab), and essentially anything dealing with physical science and math. I have worked with a wide range of different personalities (at least 50 different personalities in the classrooms); and I'm fairly comfortable working with any. I am particularly known by students and by my peers to be well determined; and I'm also very patient when working with slow learners. I am also known by students for breaking down complicated concepts into simple analogies. However, I am also detail oriented; I teach and expect students to include proper syntax and format of steps and final answers, and why they are important. Mathematics is a language; and like any written language, it needs to be "spelled" correctly. I have classroom experience as a Calculus 1 lab assistant at Wright State University. There are two types of calculus lab environments which I have worked with: 1) Pencil-and-paper assignments (my favorite) 2) Computer lab assignments using Mathematica While Mathematica is a powerful tool that professors have used to aid them in teaching math courses, I sincerely believe that students learn best when their assignments are done on paper.