May

My name is May, I am currently a student, studying Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews. I have always been a keen learner, at school often striving to go beyond the curriculum, and conceptualising what I'd learnt through my personal writing. Now, at university, I feel that I am flourishing academically, and have more access to knowledge and wonderful teachers and professors than ever before. Anthropology fulfils my curiosity to understand the ways in which people and societies experience life and act on both our most primal, instinctive impulses, and our intellectual, emotional capabilities. More than academics, I love connecting with other people and meeting new faces. I am sociable, a good listener and I prize myself in my empathy for others.

Tutoring Experience

Although I have not had formal teaching experience, I grew up with two younger brothers - one that is currently about to sit his A-Levels, and one that is still in primary school. My parents being professors, and myself being the oldest sibling, I've always found myself naturally teaching my brothers, the way I learnt from my parents. I often help my youngest with his homework and engage with what he is learning at school. For my brother who is sitting is A Levels, I am continuously sharing what I have learnt that will help with his A Levels, while sparking debate and inviting his own ideas to flourish. I love teaching in the small ways that I do at home, and would love to help other students.

Tutoring Approach

I would love to help students engage with and understand the things they are learning in to a much broader extent, in which they can situate themselves within the sociology they are reading, and come to their own conclusions and theories of the world around them. In this way, learning becomes somewhat fun, personal and is no longer confined to the often mundane feeling of the classroom.

My approach would be centred on first identifying the key concepts or ideas in sociology that the student is struggling with, and also what they feel confident in. After doing so, I will find ways to draw connections between what they do understand and what they don't yet. In drawing these connections, examples that students can recognise themselves in are key. Drawing out similarities in this way is comprehensible as students are not piled with an overload of information, but find instead that much of what they learn in sociology is inextricably linked and applicable to themselves as an individual in society. Thus, finding causes and effects, and the ways that one sociological theory acts on another and on oneself, creates a well-rounded idea of the subject, in a way that is applicable to the world before them, not solely confined to the textbook.

If a student understands much of the subject, but is struggling to remember it all or on how to revise it, I have lots of methods to help remember and make revision efficient. Much of revision is simplifying what has been learnt over the course of A Levels, and picking out what is most crucial to remember.