PrepNow Tutor - James S.
James is an accomplished engineer with a bent toward tutoring. He holds a BS in physics from Gordon College and a PhD in materials science and engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Evidence of his thriving in these arenas includes graduating magna cum laude with departmental honors in optics at Gordon College and receiving an award in 2022 for his presentation regarding computational fluid dynamics to the Society of Plastic Engineers.
In addition to making his own waves as he has studied and worked in his fields, James has also helped many students along the way. While at Gordon College, for example, he tutored introductory physics and worked as a teaching assistant in physics classrooms and labs. Then, as a graduate student, James worked once more as a teaching assistant, this time in polymer engineering and rheology courses. He is excited to return to tutoring at StudyPoint to continue to use his training to help others.
James’s tutoring style is methodical and almost never prescriptive; that is, he does not like to provide answers directly to students, instead inviting them to form their own understandings. He says, “I prefer helping students understand how to approach problems in general and then show how those methods can be applied to given questions.” Not only does this allow students to take more ownership of their learning, but also it maps well onto the study of physics, where fundamental and irrevocable forces influence everything from complex systems to individual actions.
In his spare time, James is active both physically and mentally. In high school, he played football, wrestled, and participated in choir at the local, regional, and state level. He is also a proud Eagle Scout and was part of his college’s choir and physics club.
These days, to stay active, he enjoys hiking through the woods and playing games with friends. Finally, to keep his mind sharp, he occasionally tries his hand at solving some of the great unsolved problems in mathematics, such as the Reimann hypothesis. While he has never gotten close to solving any of them, his attempts help to broaden his understanding of mathematics and the world.
