Jonathan S. (IN A NUTSHELL)

I’m sure one of the first things your eyes jumped to on my bio page was that big burst of flame on my rightmost profile picture. To any concerned parent skimming my page – there is no need to worry – I’m no arsonist! In fact, I consider myself quite the opposite. While an arsonist might burn things down to destroy them, my area of expertise is in creating and building things. First and foremost, I consider myself a “maker.” Over the years, I have amassed a workshop full of tools and machines in my home basement where I have created all manner of mechanisms and contraptions, including a robotic submarine, a remote-controlled flying ornithopter, the wrist-mounted flamethrower that you saw above, and so much more. This passion for tinkering is what landed me on my path to pursue mechanical engineering at Stanford University. In college, I am a co-lead of a division of the Stanford Space Initiative – one of the most populated and highest-funded student organizations at Stanford, where I am leading a project to send autonomous, solar-powered rovers to Antarctica. Furthermore, I am also a student researcher in the cutting-edge Stanford Robotics Lab (SRL), where I am working on various high-level projects in robotics. 

Outside of these engineering pursuits, my other forte is in civics and government. I have been immensely politically engaged for much of my life. I was president of my high school’s competitive debate team, and I also worked as a legislative director on an environmental advocacy campaign where I met with countless senators, representatives, and other high-ranking government officials to push for cleaner environmental standards. At Stanford, I continue to take advanced courses in current events and political affairs, and I partake in several civics-related clubs and events on campus. I pride myself on being able to explain, teach, and discuss complicated political issues from a strictly unbiased and nonpartisan lens.

As a mentor for your child, I can guarantee one thing – I will make my teaching as immersive and engaging as can be. If I am tasked with teaching your child engineering, I can promise that your child and I will be creating fun engineering projects from scratch. If I am tasked with teaching your child civics and government, I’ll make sure to engage your child in challenging and thought-provoking questions that might not necessarily have the right answer. Even if I am tasked with teaching your child foundational academics like math or science, I can guarantee that I’ll be relating abstract concepts to real-world applications so that your child can see for themselves how math and science play into their everyday lives. I personally never learned very well from sitting in hour-long lectures with a rambling instructor – my most formative learning experiences were all from actively doing, not passively listening. I understand that is the best way to learn, and that is how I aim to teach.