Hannah R. is a PCH tutor from the suburbs of Memphis, TN, and is entering her senior year as a psychology major at Pepperdine University. She has tutored, well, a little or a lot of almost everything, including online tutoring, and she’s had awesome adventures studying abroad and traveling all over South America as well as interning a number of nonprofits and orgs throughout LA. She has a heart for therapy, the LGBTQ community, and tutoring math, so you should really keep reading, because she’s an inspiring college student!

What is your major?

Psychology. I’m also taking two minors, Hispanic studies and social work, which is relatively new - I’m gonna do it in one year; haven’t even started yet! So that’ll be fun. 

How did you choose your field of study?

By the time I got to be a junior or senior in high school I knew I wanted to go into psychology. As a kid I actually wanted to be a veterinarian. Then the economy crashed and my dad joked that people wouldn’t take their pets to the vet anymore because they wouldn’t be able to afford it. My 10-year-old brain decided I wasn’t going to do that anymore. I cycled through a number of other things in high school; I wanted to be marine biologist for a while, then thought maybe I’d study psychology and go to med school after to be a psychologist.

I’ve been in therapy for 10 years now - it’s something I think is really important; mental health is just something everyone should pay attention to even though it’s still somehow a taboo topic. But it’s just as important as getting a regular physical checkup. Then I took AP Psych and even though it was only one semester taught by someone who had no background in it, I still loved it!

In 2018 I started at Pepperdine, took some psych classes, decided I still did love it, and I’ve stuck with it. It’s been something that I’ve consistently loved it throughout the years. 

What are you hoping to do after graduation?

After graduation, I’m definitely going to grad school, but currently I’m trying to figure out realistically if I can get into a doctoral program. It seems… not impossible [laughs], but I’m the first person in my family to consider going to grad school, and nobody knows what is going on that world, it’s so different than undergrad. 

Ultimately I want to work in social psychology or developmental psychology, and particularly with LGBTQ issues in adolescence. 

What draws you to those areas of psychology?

I myself am part of the LGBTQ community. There is an overall stress being part of that community because you do have to come out to someone every time you talk about the most important parts of your life. That overall stress is higher in my life, and although it’s better out here than back home where I’m from, I’ve seen the toll that can take on people. We’re an underserved community in so many places especially like where I’m from: there’s no help for queer people available. There are also not many treatments that cater to queer people. We treat people from different backgrounds and origins differently because we know treatments adjusted for cultural needs work better. Yet there is a gap in how we understand and treat queer patients. 

In particular I just like working with adolescents - they’re fun and exciting and there’s always something new happening there, it’s a wild time. But adolescence is also a great point for intervention. Queer issues often start cropping up for teens/high schoolers, so I feel like that is a crucial point in high school, when you can make so many life-altering decisions yet your ability to make decision isn’t complete, you’re still emotionally volatile. They can use so much extra support. 

I’m not sure where I’ll be after that, though. I think I’d like to work on a broader spectrum, for example, there is a therapist education program in San Luis Obispo, where they’re working on creating a therapist ed. program which seems more effective in a broader sense.

Where did you go for your study abroad program? What was your favorite moment or biggest takeaway from that experience?

I loved my study abroad program. I went to Buenos Aires for what was supposed to be the full year - September until the end of April. Most of what I was studying fulfilled GE and Hispanic studies minor, so I took a crap ton of Spanish, and I’m so good at it now! Before I went I’d finished enough Spanish to meet my GE requirement, so it made sense to add the minor. 

I took a history class taught entirely in Spanish, and even being able to take something like that was incredible. I didn’t think my Spanish was good enough and suddenly it was! 

Possibly the coolest experience was over Christmas break I decided not to go home, and traveled for 40 days backpacking around South America. It was really cool, and honestly, I’m not cool enough to do something like that! We went to a couple places in Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and the Galapagos Islands which was definitely the coolest spot and our biggest blowout, expenses-wise. We spent too much money to get there and while we were there but it was so incredibly worth it, because you just don’t get that opportunity all the time.

So many things went so right and wrong, the unpredictability of traveling in South America is wild, crazy, so stressful and yet so fun it just made it all so worth it. 

After break we went back for second semester, then Shanghai got cancelled and other programs, and it was just us, London, and DC still standing. On March 11, we got a text in the middle of the day telling everyone to drop whatever they’re doing and come to the auditorium at this time. That’s when we knew, “Oh this is definitely our time to go.” Our plans left on March 14, so we had three days to say goodbye to this place we had come to call home, figure out souvenirs and leave. We lost about 40 days of the semester, but I’m so glad I stayed and traveled. The one thing I regret was we didn’t make it to Brazil - originally we were going to but we decided to save it for Easter, to see the Christo statue then. But it was such a great experience. 

The biggest thing I gleaned overall, is to be a little more open minded to things you don’t know that are going to come your way. So many good things happened to us abroad, random things we didn’t plan on doing or super last minute, that didn’t always make a whole lot of sense at the time, yet worked out wonderfully. 

As terrible as quarantine has been, lots of good things have happened to me personally. I know it’s not the case for everyone, that’s a privilege of which I’m very aware, but it has been helpful to learn to let go of my super-control, the needing-to-know-everything-in-advance. As much as I still want to be able to plan my life - and that’s intelligent and helpful - what I learned in South America been so helpful in quarantine.

Where did you end up after Buenos Aires?

I went home to Tennessee, although it’s not quite home for me anymore. In June, I said I’m tired of living where I’m not happy, so I moved back to Woodland Hills, even not knowing whether Pepperdine is happening in person this Fall or not. 

You mentioned working. Where do you work besides PCH Tutors?

I work as a program aid at a treatment facility in Malibu, working with adolescents. It’s super fun since it’s a different day every time you show up, despite the terrible overnight shifts. I’ll be working for the Pepperdine Volunteer Center as the education equity coordinator this Fall. We work with different organizations and volunteer groups on and off campus to alleviate educational differences in places all over LA and Malibu, essentially feet and hands of things that need to happen in schools around and central LA.

I’m currently finishing an internship with Crayon Collection, a nonprofit working with restaurants to collect barely-used kids’ menu crayons from restaurants and repackage them for Title I schools around LA. 
I work with other orgs too, like Habits of Waste, an environmentalist nonprofit running a great summer campaign encouraging people to go plastic-free in July. It’s been a cool internship and I’m sad to leave next week but excited to move on. 

Other than that, I’m also hoping for a research assistant position this Fall but we’ll see since everything is up in the air this year.

How and why did you start tutoring? 

I worked pretty much entirely in food service throughout high school. It was fine, nothing too thrilling - I transferred to their location in Santa Monica when I moved out here. But here’s the funniest story in my life - the only time I’ve ever lost a job was because I couldn’t find parking. There was an event on the pier and no parking within miles of my job, so I got fired from my job because I couldn’t find parking. When I was looking for work, I saw a post for PCH Tutors, applied. When Jake came to campus for my interview, a friend randomly came up and interrupted and started chatting with me, thinking he was another student or friend.

I had a little tutoring experience in high school: I worked for two years through my Spanish class tutoring special ed kids once a week. I worked with a kid who had cerebral palsy, and developmental delays. I’ve actually known him since he was in kindergarten, and we worked on speech development and Spanish development one-on-one for two years.

I’d also tutored some calculus for the Honor Society - that was mostly working with kids who were delinquent on homework and we had to sign off saying they came to tutoring. But I’d never really tutoring in a formal capacity before, in fact, I didn’t realize until I moved here that formal tutoring was really a thing. 

My first student with PCH Tutors was a super cool seventh grader. I also loved his parents who were both psychologists. It was such a glimpse into a different world than what I came from. I learned a lot from tutoring him: what works well, how formal do I need to be with kids, what’s professional, what works… it’s all different from kid to kid and I’ve learned a lot from everyone. 

How has your tutoring style shifted since working remotely? 

It’s much easier in terms of English and language tutoring. Mostly, that tutoring is writing and reading and chit-chatting about whatever subject it is. Spanish is pretty easy to talk about that kind of thing. I’ve tutored a small amount of math online, mostly a question here and there, but tutoring math this year will be a  whole different ballgame. An iPad would make that easier - typically it’s hard and there isn’t really a great way to verbally explain most math things. Usually we put tech aside and focus on pen and paper. 

You’ve tutored a little bit of A LOT OF THINGS. Can you list everything you’ve tutored?

Third or fourth grade math, seventh grade math, elementary school science, English, algebra II, pre calc, college pre-calc, biology, AP environmental science, any level of Spanish, 9th grade English, chemistry.

What’s your favorite subject to tutor?

I like tutoring math the best! I’m not even the best at math, but I’m really good at tutoring it.  

What lessons have you learned from online schooling that you can pass along to your students?

Obligatory use of technology, in terms of tutoring students with focus issues, would leave in corona times. With most students, I explicitly don’t use tech, because it can be so easily distracting. You get a notification and boom, it takes all your attention away immediately. Usually we put phones and computers and everything away. It’s so much easier to gauge what distractions are happening in person and correct for them.

These kids are so tech savvy though! They’re always pulling up docs and things I’ve never heard of.

What do you love best about tutoring?

Getting to check in on how these kids are doing. I like to be an intermediary between what a teacher is like - someone you can’t tell your life to/don’t want to talk about your day with - and a friend - someone with whom you don’t typically do anything productive. As a tutor, I fall somewhere between that. We get a lot of work done but connect in a way that’s educational and I get to know them pretty well. I know what their dog’s name is, where they go to school, who their mom and dad and sister are, and that they have prom in two weeks or went to the beach last week - little things like that give me a better grasp on how to teach them than you probably get in a traditional teaching setting. That traditional setting is necessary but does block that. Tutoring is not so stringent, and being closer in age to them is less intimidating. After all, I just graduated high school barely two years ago now, so I relate to their struggles a little bit. If there’s something I don’t know how to do I’ll look it up and figure it out, which is also not something you can get at school very much. It’s nice to know students on a personal level and get real with them, it helps them engage with the material, too. 

Do you have any success stories or memorable moments from tutoring?  

I tutored one girl at Palisades High School in environmental AP science and she was so stressed out about the exam. SO stressed out, similar to how I was in high school. It was funny/sad. I told her that you’re really gonna be ok, fine, I’ve taken this before, you’ll do great. 

She texted me the day the results came out: “I got a four!” That’s probably my most finite success story. She was so upset; she thought she was going to get a 1. I knew she would do better than just passing, but it was great to see her exceed every expectation.

It’s also rewarding to hear things from parents like, “You’re the only person who has been able to get him to sit down and do his homework.” Or, “So and so talks about you after your session and seems to be doing much better in school.” These are less specific stories, but hearing parental feedback about how we’re doing is great.

What is something you’ve learned about yourself through tutoring?

I’ve learned that I still hate poetry and will always hate poetry. I don’t hate reading it, but I hate studying it. 

I’ve learned a lot about how my own distractions are when I’m working. It’s easy to go into sessions and jam right through it because it’s not my own work, but I get to observe how students get distracted and then observe how that works in my own life. It’s helped me get more productive and engage their distractions while also engaging my own. It’s more productive, for example, to give them a second to get pulled away, then get back on track. Take the extra second to let your brain go somewhere else. 

What is the biggest advice or a favorite mantra you share with your students?

High school students feel like they have no clue what’s happening a lot of the time. The biggest confidence booster I’ve been able to give is that most of us functional adults also have no clue what’s happening most of the time. Most people I know are just kind of winging it day to day and making it happen as we go. Making students feel like they’re not alone in their confusion or struggles has been super helpful. When they hit panic mode, I go into panic control mode: it’s gonna be fine, you’re gonna get through it, you’re gonna survive, high school is not the end of the world.

What else do you do for fun? 

I bake, love to bake. Abroad I was known as the chocolate chip cookies, walking around with a plate of cookies not infrequently. Ice skater, so sometimes when that opens ill go skate, although not good as m

Have you read any good books lately and if so, what are they and why did you enjoy them?

I am way too busy to read anything but I did recently get a gift - The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes which is supposed to be kind of a prequel to the Hunger Games. I haven’t read it yet, I’m super excited, although I’ve heard mixed reviews which is frustrating because I LOVED Hunger Games. Read the Hunger Games.