Teaching Overview
Teaching and Service are tied together for me. As an undergraduate my first experience teaching was working as large group tutor for an introductory biology class. In graduate school the audience and subject that I teach has become much more varied. Being part of the research community inherently involves mentorship and communication. However, I also taught through Science Bus, an outreach organization that creates hands-on experiments for elementary students. I volunteered as an instructor for a wilderness skills course that trains people to travel safely and respectfully in the outdoors. In each experience teaching has been a way to empower others, regardless of age, to recognize their own skills and ability to learn.
Instructors with strangely similar tastes in gear on a OEP climbing trip. I swear I wore it first.
Outdoor Education Program (OEP)
The Outdoor Education Program was a student organization that trained other students to travel safely and respectfully in the wilderness. So much of the time, limits are self-imposed. What I loved most about OEP is how we were able to take people out of their comfort zone. We helped make them push their limits, and learn to enjoy that push.
Science Bus comes to the Stanford Campus for the Science Olympics. The students get to celebrate a quarter of hard work and creativity in a series of engineering contests.
Science Bus
Science Bus is a student organization at Stanford that partners with the East Palo Alto Charter School (EPACS) to run an afterschool program. Science education at EPACS formally begins in sixth grade, but through science bus, we engage younger children in science by using hands-on experiments.
SBSA retreat-Discussions revolved around how to support all aspects of graduate student life.
SBSA Mentor
The Stanford Biosciences Student Association (SBSA) provides a mentorship program for incoming first year grad students. I served as a big sibling for four different new graduate students.
Adapted from Seekhain.
CLAS Tutor
Introductory biology at UC Santa Barbara is taught four times a week at 8am. For one quarter, I went to each class, not because I was enrolled, but because I was leading group tutorials for Campus Learning Assistance Services (CLAS). CLAS helps around 7,000 students every year. The group provides drop-in tutoring and group tutoring opportunities to help students with everything from organic chemistry to literature..