The Whitney Young Math Center has re-opened its doors and is back and better than ever! Due to budgetary constraints and a lack of activity, the Math Center was shut down at the end of the 2015-2016 school year. However, our wonderful Math Department has contracted math tutoring professionals, Mathnasium, and temporarily re-opened the Math Center in the weeks leading up to first semester finals. The Math Center is an amazing resource for all students – not just those who are struggling. To get a better understanding of how the Math Center can be used, I went there every day for four days. During this time, I met with two different tutors, although each week four are available. Unfortunately for me and my article, two of them were not present during my lunch period this week.

Math Center hours and tutors are displayed outside the room.

To be completely honest, my first time using the Math Center was not great. I didn’t come prepared with any specific questions, which made it extremely hard for Max, my tutor, to determine how he could assist me. When he asked what I needed help with I could only respond with, “Umm, calculus?” Although he tried to work with me, he needed me to be a bit more specific. On top of that, I was quite surprised by the four other people surrounding me; for some reason it had never occurred to me that my session wouldn’t be one on one. Frustrated with myself for being so unprepared, I left after fifteen minutes.

Armed with my previous day’s knowledge, I came back the next day with five specific homework questions. This time I met with Matt, who was a huge help. The fact that I brought him specific problems allowed him to work with me step by step through the processes that I needed to take. He even showed me how to write an extremely long and difficult proof, and to my amazement I understood exactly what he did and why the math worked. I stayed there for the whole period, and left feeling much better about my grasp of concavity. Although I’m sure that all of the Mathnasium tutors are proficient at teaching math, I highly recommend you see Matt if you need help with calculus.

On Wednesday and Friday I went to the math center again and stayed for the whole period. On those days Max was tutoring, and it went about five-hundred percent better than my first day. Now that I knew to bring in specific questions, Max was really able to help teach me. What made it even better was that two other girls from my calculus class came in and we were all able to work together. With Max’s guidance and help from each other, the three of us left feeling satisfied that we were ready for our quiz.

Overall, I had an awesome Math Center experience. Both tutors I met were friendly, understanding, and wholeheartedly dedicated to helping me understand the mysterious ways of calculus. I urge all Whitney Young students to take advantage of this opportunity because it won’t be here for long! The Math Center is open from 10:00 AM – 4:15 PM everyday in Blue House until finals!

-Denise