Lauren

Personal descri ption:
Hi, my name is Lauren and I am 24 years old. I am currently undertaking my clinical training as a fifth year medical student via the Graduate Entry Programme at Imperial College London. Prior to this I read Natural Sciences at University of Cambridge with an interest in a range of biological topics including biology of cells, physiology, pathology and history & ethics of medicine.

I have always been a hardworking and conscientious student but more importantly I have made an effort to adapt and improve my approach to learning to meet the increasing demands that school and university brings. I would love to use my experiences to help other students work towards and achieve their goals, and pass on the studying skills I have found so helpful.

During my time at Cambridge I found the small-group-based supervisions to be the best way to test my own understanding of a topic and a great opportunity to seek answers to questions that had not been raised during class. This is why I believe tutoring is one of the most effective ways for a student to enhance their own education. Furthermore having been a supervisee myself I understand the qualities that are sought in a tutor. The supervisors I most admired were those that were approachable, patient and knowledgeable - qualities I strive to embody in my own tutoring.

Tutoring approach:
I believe that the best approach to tutoring is to work in partnership with the tutee in an environment that we both feel comfortable, ensuring an interactive and engaging session.

The teaching methods used will be adapted to every tutee, catering to the individual differences in learning approaches and pace. These could range from working through practice questions to test a tutee`s knowledge, using diagrams to explain difficult concepts, to having an open and two-way discussion about a topic of interest. I would explore these specifics prior to and during the first session so that I could appreciate the needs of the tutee. In later sessions we can review the approach used and make changes if both the tutee and I feel this would be beneficial.

Whether a tutee is looking to understand the basics of a topic they are struggling with or wanting to push themselves to excel in areas they are interested in I believe everyone can reach their potential and that is what I set out to do through my tutoring.

Availability: Evenings and weekends

Willing to travel: 3 miles

Experience: I have thoroughly enjoyed my previous tutoring experiences both in biology and medicine. In particular I love that each tutee is different and that the approach we develop it one that ensures we work as a team to achieve the tutee’s goals.

Most recently I provided extensive biology tutoring for an A level student, working with them on a weekly basis throughout the course of the year to cover the entire subject syllabus. As well as ensuring a basic understanding of the core topics we spent time discussing and debating particular areas of interest to the student to make the sessions more dynamic. To ensure we maintained an appropriate pace throughout the year I made a detailed schedule and reviewed this with the student regularly. As a result we were able to incorporate time to revise for an AS level resit and go through plenty of exam practice before the final exams.

I have also provided more intensive tutoring over shorter periods. With one A level student I met on almost a daily basis over a fortnight to prepare for an imminent medical interview. In this time we prepared for standard medical interview questions and explored the different scenarios common to the multiple min-interview style. Furthermore we spent time practicing how to adapt prepared answers to specific questions so that they still sounded natural as well as discussing how to deal with unexpected or unusual questions. With a final year biomedical university student I provided tutoring in a particular module they had been struggling with. Based on the lectures and extra reading material the student had been provided with we were able to work through difficult physiological concepts and discuss the intricacies of relevant scientific papers.

I am very excited to continue to tutor students in the areas of mathematics and science, as well as help with university applications and the UKCAT entrance exam (my own average was 790).

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