About Me

Hello! I am currently a graduate level student that will begin work towards my Human Health and Environmental Systems MPH at Oregon Health and Science University in the fall. I held my first tutoring job in high school, where I spent after school and summers working with local elementary school students on reading, writing, and math skills. I loved the rare chance to see the look on a child's face when a tricky concept they had been struggling with suddenly made sense. More recently, I have been working at the Washington State University Vancouver Writing Center. There I did both face-to-face and online consultations with students about pieces of their writing. We would discuss the papers ideas, argument, organization, flow, grammar mechanics, and citation style. When working with papers, I follow strategies that we were taught to use at the writing center, which include reading papers out loud to help find problematic sentences, doing reverse outlines to check the organization and effectiveness of the papers argument, and teaching the sandwich method of using quotes to help students avoid overusing other people's words. My favorite concept to explain from my time working at the writing center is how to use semicolons! Many people are both confused and scared by that particular piece of punctuation, but it's actually fairly simple to get the hang of if explained in plain language (rather than what I think of as 'grammar language'). I always enjoyed having regulars that came in stop me to show off their effective use of a semi-colon in a paper, when they have previously been too uncomfortable to use it. While I have not previously tutored in sciences or standardized testing, I am very knowledgable in the sciences due to my degree in Environmental Science and can share testing strategies that help avoid making mistakes and falling for trick questions. I believe a tutoring session should be a discussion, rather any type of lecture, where you should feel comfortable enough to ask questions or let me know if something isn't working. Personally, I struggle in math and never thought I would be able to get a degree that requires the math skills that my BS did and MPH will. However, I now believe that anyone can succeed in any subject, as long as the information is presented in ways that they can understand and they put in the hard work needed to make success happen.

Education & Certifications

Q&A with Kourtney

Tutoring Subjects