Personal Description:

Hello! My name is Callum and I am a PhD student at SFU in organic chemistry. I do my current research in the Britton Lab and completed my Master's at the University of St Andrews, with a year in industry at GSK. My primary focus is on organic chemistry, and will be able to help you with any undergradua**Contact Detail Removed**vel organic chemistry course you may be doing.
I am a very relaxed person and I try to be kind and understanding. In my spare time I read a lot, do yoga, brew beer and generally do anything to relax after long days in the lab.

Tutoring Experience:

I TA'd Chem 286 labs last semester and I am currently TA'ing chem 282/283/284 this semester for tutorials so I am very familiar with all the material covered in these courses. I tutored some first year courses in my time in St Andrews, including physical, inorganic and organic chemistry courses. I have also spent time as a teaching assistant in high schools in Scotland, mainly helping the students having the most difficulty understanding the work they were doing.

Tutoring Approach:

My approach to tutoring chemistry, particularly organic, is to get across the underlying principles related to the question. Understanding the basic principles and why they occur is the key to being able to tackle problems in an exam. I try to stay away from memorizing the answers to problems about mechanisms in particular, as I find that it is much easier to get good marks in these problems through understanding and not memorization. I will also emphasize how important it is to do questions in your own time, as chemistry is a subject in which you need to work through problems yourself to make sure you understand it. I am very patient and always willing to sit and go through something for as long as possible until you understand it, and I will always try to be kind and considerate if it is difficult for you to grasp. Chemistry is difficult and I appreciate that it takes a lot of time to understand what is going on, and I am willing to spend as much time as required to help someone who is putting in the effort to do as well as they possibly can when it comes to exams!