Services
Tutoring
I've completed thousands of hours of one-on-one tutoring and have over a decade of classroom experience in history, English, and writing courses. Whatever your school and no matter how challenging your assignments, I can help.
HISTORY TUTORING: Between my history Ph.D., publications in multiple professional history journals, professorial work at Macalester, UCLA, and Pitzer, and guest lectures at Harvard, Brown, and the University of Pennsylvania, I know a lot about history.
I'm particularly skilled at tutoring AP history courses. I’ve been an official APUSH grader for over a decade and have become part of the College Board’s AP History community. This experience means I not only understand the test, but I’m also always up to date with its latest changes. Over the years, I've helped many students earn a 5 on their APUSH, AP Euro, and AP World exams.
OTHER SUBJECTS: I have substantial experience tutoring students in English (including AP Language, AP Literature, AP Research, and American and European literature courses), and Social Science courses (including AP Human Geography and AP Government). In these areas I draw upon my background as a former high school English and Social Studies teacher, and have tutored multiple students in each of these areas.
Regardless of the subject, I take special pride in my ability to explain complex topics in ways that high school students understand. I also work hard to make the lessons learned in class applicable to life beyond school, demonstrating how concepts within history and literature can be used to gain deeper understandings in the real world.
Essay Writing
Having trouble starting that paper? We've all been there! Writing rarely comes easily to anyone.
Fortunately, I'm here to help. Over the years I've worked with many students upon all aspects of essay writing, from outlining to final edits and from basic five-paragraph essays to lengthy term papers. As a published author, I've learned over the years how to create powerful, well-organized narratives that resonate with diverse audiences, and these are skills I impart to students during our sessions.
Moreover, my background in teaching college writing classes gives me a unique skillset as an essay editor: not only do I have over a decade of professional writing experience within elite academic settings, I also have a decade of teaching those skills to teenage students.
Finally, I have special experience in helping students draft personal statements and other college essays. I’ve helped students apply to dozens of schools, from local community colleges to the Ivy League. Here, my history degree means I approach editing from a narrative perspective: I literally start by having students tell me stories about their lives. As we work together, I help students make these stories more vivid, cogent, and effective in order to demonstrate aspects of their character. Finally, we shape that story to fit the required essay prompts. This “story-first” method means that a student’s experiences and insights remain foregrounded, allowing for powerful narratives that command the prompt and result in focused, compelling essays.
Test Prep
ACT / SAT: I’ve been teaching the Reading and Grammar sections of the ACT and SAT for almost a decade and have helped numerous students to near-perfect scores. I also helped develop the SAT and ACT curriculums at two separate test-prep centers in southern California. I work with students of all levels and abilities, and have tips and strategies for every kind of student. I also work with students for a variety of durations, from a few days to a few months.
AP Exams: I have extensive experience in training people for AP exams in US History, European History, and American history, as well as AP Human Geography, AP Government, and AP Language and AP Literature. Please see the info above under the tutoring heading for more information.
College Counseling
For the past six years I’ve worked primarily as a professional college counselor and essay editor, helping students find schools that best fit their aptitudes and interests, and guiding families through today’s increasingly complex application process. I’ve helped students successfully apply to dozens of schools, from local community colleges to the Ivy League.
I earned a Specialized Certificate in College Counseling from UC San Diego in 2018, I’m a member of the Western Association for College Admission Counseling (WACAC) and have worked with college access associations like SoCal CANN and ScholarMatch. I'm also a board member and chief College Counseling consultant at Middle Tree, a nonprofit college readiness center for low-income students in western Los Angeles county. Finally, as a professor, each college I’ve worked at is nationally ranked in the top 50, and my experiences from these schools offer me special insights into what elite colleges expect from incoming students.
When working as a college counselor, I typically partner with my associate Garth Robertson, who is similarly highly experienced in college counseling. Please visit his website to see his experience, and contact me for info about how this partnership works.
Curriculum Consulting
I have experience helping both learning centers and individual families create high school curriculums for History, English, and ACT/SAT test prep.
For families, I specialize in designing curriculum for homeschool students. When doing so, I work closely with the parents, making sure that the final course material meets not only their desired academic requirements, but also includes the educational values they would like stressed within their home classroom. Examples of past courses I've designed include the history of technology, the history of religion in America, and several English literature and nonfiction courses.
Regardless of the course material, I take pride that my curriculums don't simply teach skills. They also teach students to apply what they learn to their everyday environment and to use their learning to become an informed, critical, and engaged society member. This, I believe, is the essence of a good education.
For learning centers, I have created a variety of ESL, English, History and test prep curriculums over the years. These span all ability levels and from class sizes between three and twenty. Email for more info on these course designs.