PrepNow Tutor - Alex V.
An engineer who likes to build things, Alex holds a BS in mechanical engineering with a minor in manufacturing from Wentworth Institute of Technology. Throughout his career, Alex has worked for a Korean biotech startup. He started teaching martial arts in 2015 and recently opened his own martial arts school. “Being able to teach a specialized skill set—especially a tactile one—showed me how to be a patient teacher,” he says. In addition to tutoring physics and chemistry, he is now a design engineer.
Alex was a tutor throughout high school and college. In college, he most frequently tutored statistics, physics, statics, and thermodynamics, teaching both informally and as part of a campus center in the library. “My favorite thing about teaching and tutoring is the shared sense of achievement when someone that I'm mentoring has a breakthrough in understanding something or develops a new skill or thought process,” Alex says. “I feel like I vicariously share that person's accomplishment.”
An engaging tutor, Alex’s teaching style is accessible and active. “I like to break down the material and make the information as digestible and relatable to the students however I can,” Alex says. “I'll tell short stories, make analogies and metaphors, or use humor to make the subject easier to learn and to allow the student to be more willing to understand.” Alex explains that if students can relate to the subject, or if there's a heuristic that can be taken advantage of, then the entire subject becomes less daunting.
Alex has been a martial artist in various styles (boxing, judo, kung fu, tae kwon do, Brazilian jiu-jitsu) since he was five; he was also a gymnast and chess player in high school. “I've always had some sort of part-time work to keep myself busy or a project that I'm working on at home,” he says.
Alex enjoys most active hobbies and regularly plays Magic the Gathering with friends, plus he enjoys traveling; he also relaxes by reading, especially fantasy novels, self-improvement books, and comics. “I have a blacksmithing setup in my garage with a forge, anvil, and small smelter,” Alex shares.
