As we step into 2025, we’re excited to spotlight our exceptional General Academic tutors. This month, meet Josh Yu—a dedicated tutor committed to fostering academic excellence in a way that is natural, fun, and relatable for his students. Discover his unique tutoring style, his approach to personalized sessions, and his passions beyond the classroom.
What subjects and classes do you help our students with?
I help with all levels and sections of the ISEE, SAT, and ACT, as well as all math and science classes up to the AP level.
What is your favorite subject to tutor?
Math. There are multiple ways to solve the same problem and it makes it much easier to adjust each session to a student’s strengths.
What does a typical session with you look like?
I start by going over the previous week’s homework. For a test prep student, this homework would likely consist of full-length sections or additional practice targeting something they need to work on. From there, I identify any particular weaknesses the student might have. If there are any weaknesses that stand out, I will then walk them through some examples before giving them more practice problems to solve, first with a bit of my help, then independently.
If my student doesn’t immediately seem to be struggling with anything, I give them more general practice and watch their approach to each question to identify any patterns with any mistakes that they’re making. Every student has room for growth, and it’s possible that they still make certain calculation mistakes, or that they have a habit that needs refining.
How do you view your role as a tutor?
I want to make sure that I’m not just teaching content that my student needs to know, I am also setting them up for future success. In my opinion, tutoring is not just simply helping a student every week; I want to teach them to independently identify where they are struggling and to get used to shoring up those weaknesses themselves, so that they can become more self-sufficient learners in the future.
What is your favorite part of being a tutor?
I love seeing my students succeed. It brings me joy to see that I was able to help others improve, just as my teachers and parents have done for me. After weeks of dedicated reading comprehension prep, one of my students recently brought up his section score by 4 stanines between his two attempts at the ISEE. To see my student grow in both skill and confidence was incredibly rewarding for us both.
Overall, my favorite sessions are those where the dynamic is so natural, the meeting feels more like an extended conversation than a session. My students and I like to connect math problems to similar, real-life situations, and I find that my students often grasp concepts more quickly when they are easily relatable to what they see on a day-to-day basis.
If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be and why?
Jensen Huang. He runs a company that I’m really interested in, both in terms of tech and AI software. As a person, he’s charismatic and seems to wear his personality on his sleeve, which I find really interesting from a CEO. I would love to meet him and hear about what NVIDIA has going on behind the scenes.
Tutoring with General Academic
General Academic’s subject and test prep tutors provide the structured support to accommodate your student wherever they’re at. We help our students with a wide range of materials, ranging from 1st through 12th grade subject prep, ISEE, and SAT. To get the ball rolling, give us a call at (713) 838-7774 or fill out our tutoring request form.
