Richa Yash
math instructor
Hello! My name is Richa, I am from India and have a BS in computer Science and Engineering. Even since the very beginning of my education, in primary school, I loved mathematics, and was among the best of my class. It was that easy class where I can get the answers just by thinking about them. I don't even have to read anything! It's so easy that it's boring. I was very wrong. I first took Calculus my second year of high school, and I remember it as being quite a paradigm shift from all the math I knew. There was a moment taking the calculus series that I realized I wasn’t solving for some “x” anymore. What we were doing involved developing models for the world. I saw it for the first time. We were peeking at the motivations of solving the problems of reality.
In last 10 years, I have coached students for International Math Olympiad, SAT, IIT JEE (entrance exam for premier engineering institutions in India with less than 2% acceptance rate) however I find it amusing to teach middle and higher grade students as they ask unexpected questions and never has dull moments. Of course, to do that, it's important to first address what exactly the source of the problems is. My many years of experience as a tutor have given me the tools to glean a lot of information from what my students say, and from what they don't say! In a way, each student is a puzzle to be solved: how they think about the concepts, what the best way to teach them is, how I can motivate them. I want these young minds to have logical reasoning and problem solving without any fear of ‘Math’.
I volunteer as a math challenge chair at my daughter’s elementary school, hoping to encourage interest in math from early years.