Austin Dominguez

I started tutoring while in college at the University of Central Florida (UCF) from May to July of 2018 while I took the summer off from semester classes. I tutored Calculus I since I got an A in this course and was currently enrolled in higher levels of mathematics for my Computer Engineering degree. This tutoring was done with Varsity Tutors and I was considered a private tutor, where I would meet the client in person.

I was also a Learning Assistant from August to December of 2018 at UCF for Calculus I. As a Learning Assistant, I would assist students in an auditorium classroom with any questions they had to questions posed on the screen by the professor. I had to listen to feedback students may give or observations I would make and relay them to the professor. This way, it would create the best learning environment for information to be transferred. There was also "Lab hours", where students had to be monitored for their studying and doing homework. Every week, they had to do several hours in a room and it was a part of their grade in the class. As a Learning Assistant, I had to help students with the lab hours on top of the lecture. Finally, we had an additional course on how to communicate effectively and teach concepts as part of the job on campus. This was in addition to proctoring exams/quizzes in the auditorium.

What I love about tutoring is being able to share information and experiencing when they grasp a new concept or idea. It's rewarding when you know that you can help someone understand a new concept as it also shows how well the tutor knows the material. Furthermore, I always enjoyed working with younger students and had a lot of patience.

What I think would make me stand out is another job experience I had where I worked at Siemens Energy. In this company, I was under the Business Process Team where I had to collaborate with other student interns, managers, and employees. The collaboration involved specific information needed for the company to understand where improvement was needed, status updates on inventory or shipment dates, and other vital statistics. We also got assigned projects relating to automating information, and I was in charge with troubleshooting users who couldn't access a site related to transactions done with Siemens. This relates to tutoring as it involves collaboration and team communication which entails patience, knowing how to frame a concept, and transferring of information. For example, when I tried to get users who were having difficulties accessing a site the ability to login, it involves a step-by-step process to ensure they are following the registration procedure properly. Furthermore, there were times when clients couldn't login regardless of the instructions given to me, which involved critical thinking and trial-and-error to enable them authentication.

Different skills or methods I use involve going step by step from start to finish on how I got an answer. I then proceed to do one or two more examples before making them do the next problem and I critique it afterwards. I may not disclose immediately what they did wrong, and may instead ask why they did a certain step or got to a certain answer. The questions are tailored towards steps or answers done incorrectly.

If this methodology fails, I try to approach another process that could lead to the same answer, as sometimes there are different tools in mathematics to achieve the same answer. If this isn't possible, then I try to continue asking questions and get to the root cause of why a specific concept isn't being understood. That way, they can repeatedly use that new concept with different numbers across different problems, as the concept matters more than the numbers used.