PrepNow Tutor - Elias H.
Actuary Elias loves to use math to help people. He hopes to teach others how they can use it, too. Elias attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he earned his bachelor's in actuarial science and statistics. After college, he worked as an actuary at a pension consulting firm before becoming a statistician and data analyst for a biomedical firm.
Elias first began volunteering as a tutor while in college. He found pride in the realization that “eventually, the sessions end—the student has achieved success.” He started accepting payment for tutoring in 2011. He initially worked at a local community college with older students who needed help with pre-college and college-level mathematics. Primarily these students were looking to complete their GEDs. Elias also tutored privately and worked with a wide-range of students—everyone from a ten-year-old trigonometry student to a prospective MBA student. In addition to math subjects, he did assist students with social studies, English, and reading.
In 2016, Elias returned to his alma mater to tutor freshmen in non-STEM majors who needed help with required mathematics courses. He then taught an undergraduate course in actuarial mathematics. The course was heavily calculus-based and aimed to prepare students for taking the exams required to enter either the Society of Actuaries or Casualty Actuary Society. Elias also works as a mentor at his current company. He has worked with numerous interns, both undergraduate and graduate students, and medical research fellows on topics as varied as data science, AI, economics, and biomedical research.
Since Elias has worked with so many students, he alters his approach based on the age of the student, their understanding, and the topic. “For teaching younger students, I tend to use Socratic methods—such as asking them questions in an attempt to lead them to a conclusion without giving away an answer.” He explains, “this serves the dual purpose of identifying how the student thinks—to better help me teach—and reinforces their understanding.” There is no one way that each student learns and balancing the many forms of learning is important to understanding concepts. “For this reason, I feel it is important to connect study topics to a student’s daily life, especially to demonstrate the value of these concepts and skills,” Elias says.
While Elias has many accomplishments and successes, his most impressive might be his participation in a team that figured out how to beat Super Mario World in less than one minute! When he was in college, Elias was president of the art club, vice president of the chess club, and a member of both the ethics bowl and the student senate. Outside of work he loves to paint—mostly landscapes.
