Nathan
University of Oxford
Mathematics
1st Year
DBS
4.9
13
11About Me
Hi, I’m Nathan. I am an Oxford Undergraduate offering tuition in mathematics at a variety of levels. I can also offer support with the MAT. I’m a student but have long and happy experience in informal tutoring and have been a great help for many since primary school. More recently, I have amassed over 30k reputation and reached 150k people as the user FShrike on the Mathematics Stack Exchange, volunteering my ‘tutoring’ services by answering over 900 questions almost exclusively at undergraduate level.
Although I have not finished my undergraduate in mathematics, I am comfortably attending fourth year lectures and, depending on the topic, may have a lot of experience in a particular area of undergraduate or graduate mathematics. If you would like to dip your toes into some university mathematics or more formally cover some areas then I may be able to help a great deal; this will depend on the topic and would have to be discussed.
I am keen to explore the deeper mathematics behinds things studied in school and enjoy tangential discussions that go beyond the syllabus. I care far more about the reasons why things are true than I do about the facts themselves: students are mostly just taught to accept facts at the school level, but I am always willing to go further and explore why these ‘facts’ are actually facts (or, perhaps, to explore why these ‘facts’ are not always true and the reality is far more subtle than what is presented in school – this is a common occurrence). Those I’ve helped would say my main strengths are my warm and engaging manner, and that I am, where possible, happy to explain things in a variety of equivalent ways at a variety of different levels of detail.
My teaching style
Depending on your wishes, I could teach in a “course” format or help the student with the material they are already engaging with from, say, school. Again this depends on the student’s wishes but my priority will usually be to ensure a firm understanding of the concepts (at the appropriate level of detail) as I believe this is fundamental to doing well in mathematics. Of course, being able to successfully apply methods in exams is essential and I can teach that too – I just firmly believe one can handle exams with much more ease and enjoyment if one understands the reasons why “everything works” and can see what’s going on to a good level; then, if you encounter an atypical question, you are more empowered to adapt and succeed.
The overall feel will not be intimidatingly formal as I am a student myself. However, the mathematics itself could be made very formal if the student so wished (this is more relevant to early undergraduate level). There are no silly questions: it is important to distinguish between “trivial” and “silly”. I recognise that what is trivial for one person is certainly not trivial for another and am always happy to elaborate on something. I am very patient with questions of any nature, be they on the “syllabus” or some other area of mathematics or science.
My past experience
I have a lot of experience with informal tutoring, successfully helping many people during my school career. At both schools that I went to, I was well-known for being an excellent person to come to with questions.
I also have a strong track record in formal, paid-for tutoring with some people in my neighbourhood and worked for a few months at my local Kumon centre.
I have been an active volunteer tutor for around two years on the mathematics stack exchange, as the user FShrike, where I have answered over 900 questions and reached over 150,000 people with my answers, receiving much positive feedback.
My Proudest Achievements
I’m most proud of the self-studying I did during sixth form that enabled me to cover an enormous amount of university content ahead of time, and of developing my piano skills with a professional musician (Lubomyr Melnyk). For the more standard proudest-moments:
I’m proud to be here in Oxford and of following fourth year lectures with ease. I’m maybe most proud of attaining 12 level 9s at GCSE across the board; being a STEM student doesn’t mean you should neglect the other aspects of life; I was proud to have maintained a high level of creative writing, for example.
The 4A*s at A level of course is another thing to be proud of.
I teach
- MAT
- Chemistry
- Physics
- Maths
- Further Maths
- Pure Maths
- Algebra
- Calculus
- Geometry
- Trigonometry
- Mathematics
My Results and Achievements
- Offer from Oxford
- A*A*A*A* at A-Level
- 12 9s at GCSE
- 89 in MAT
- Offer from Durham
- Offer from Imperial College London
- Offer from Warwick