PrepNow Tutor - Alexandria L.
Alexandria (Alex) earned her Bachelor's in comparative literature from Yale University. She earned her Master's in adolescent education from St. John's University.
Since completing school, she has launched a Mandarin language immersion program for preschool children in Colorado, worked with legal databases for JP Morgan Chase, and taught at both the middle- and high-school levels.
"I began tutoring the SAT in college and learned in the process how disparate in quality different educational experiences can be," Alex says. That experience actually led her to become a teacher. "Perhaps cliche," she says, "but I really love watching the light bulb go on. It's exciting to watch children get excited about learning. Education is the hardest and most satisfying job I've ever had, and I don't regret a single moment."
In the classroom, she has taught middle-school English at the Honors level for two years and high-school English at the 11th- and 12th-grade Honors and AP level for three. For several years, she has tutored with our sister company, StudyPoint.
"I never solve a problem for a student," she says. "I give examples and ask questions until they have solved it for themselves. Especially on standardized tests, students have to be able to rely on their own mental toolbox. To my mind, there is no single skill more important than the ability to problem-solve."
In high school, Alex played soccer and ran track. In college, she played intramural soccer.
She still occasionally plays soccer in local pick-up games, and loves karaoke and auditioning for both plays and musicals. "Language, music, arts: those are my passions," she says. She will be in the northern New Jersey premier of Ghost, the musical, this fall.
Fun fact: Alex has been on the Howard Stern show twice! A daily caller on the show once lied about creating a joke, which he actually stole from a newscast. The show made him write an essay to "redeem" himself and wanted a real teacher to proctor and grade it. "I ended up being that teacher!" Alex says. "It was a lot of fun!"
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