Instructor

Featured Seminar Leader Tatiana Mengistu

Ms. Mengistu graduated from UCLA with a bachelor's degree in Neuroscience. Ms. Mengistu is incredibly passionate about students' success. She is bilingual and have enormous experience teaching math and science classes at different levels. She taught math and life science classes to elementary and middle school students. Ms. Mengistu used lesson plans and always integrated fun activities to grab her students’ attention. At Santa Monica College, she worked as a general chemistry and biology tutor for two years. Ms. Mengistu helped students understand previous lessons and assisted them in completing their assignments and laboratory reports. Once a week, she facilitated large-group discussion sessions to encourage students to share ideas on challenging concepts. For students who needed extra help, Ms. Mengistu set aside her weekends to provide private tutoring. This one-on-one interaction allowed Ms. Mengistu to build strong relationships with her students. After introducing the general concepts, they still had ample time to practice the material by themselves, which allowed her to record their gradual improvements. Besides Tutoring, Ms. Mengistu also has experience mentoring students. During her stay in a stroke recovery lab at UCLA, she appreciated the value of having a mentor that made her comfortable to ask questions. Ms. Mengistu's project supervisor was one of the mentors who was passionate about explaining complex ideas in simplistic forms. Ms. Mengistu took his approach when I was training undergraduate students for her project. She taught them different lab techniques and facilitated discussions over various journals. She encouraged her students to become comfortable to ask questions whenever they encounter difficulties. She has also been coaching various students on college applications. Three of the students she advised have now transferred to UCLA. Ms. Mengistu's teaching philosophy is to be a great inspirer; through her interactions with her students, she hopes to create confidence in their knowledge and use their maximum potential.