My name is Colleen Mellinger. I was born and raised in Springfield, Missouri, and moved to California at the end of high school. Growing up, I was very intrigued by the world around me. I was constantly attempting to explain every phenomenon I saw. Once I got to school, this passion drove me straight to the sciences. I was finally able to explain phenomena I saw every day with reproducible data to back up my observations. It was no surprise that when I took my first chemistry class, I was hooked. I went on to pursue my undergraduate education at the University of California, San Diego, where I received my Bachelors' of Science degrees majoring in  both Chemistry and in Physics and minoring in all three of Mathematics and Engineering and Computer Science.  This is how I have such a wide breadth to such an incredible depth of all things STEM: I quite literally covered all four, Science Technology Engineering Math, at the highest level taught outside of graduate school, and have been tutoring all of those subjects both during those years and every year since which has now been over a decade! 

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Being in the area and tutoring for such a long time with so many different schools from many different schools Listing the schools would take way too much space than what i have to name them all out, but I can almost promise if the student attends any of the schools around the peninsula, North of San Jose and South of the City of SF,  that I not only am familiar with the curriculum and how it differs from school to school, but also even familiar with the teachers and how they differ within each school so I can best help each individual student.  I have found this fact incredibly useful as I know what the teacher is typically looking for, how they grade, and (what a lot of students appreciate most)  how they tend to structure and what they typically cover their tests, and this is for just about every school around here where I live in Menlo Park!

 I fell in love with turning the subjects students felt were impossible into subjects they could be excited about. The one-on-one style of tutoring is ideal as it allows me to tailor my explanations to each student: their learning style, their strengths and weaknesses, their experiences ,and background of classes taken before or taking concurrently — another great benefit of being able to help with so many subjects — which allow me to relate abstract concepts to something they’ve experienced. I may tutor a completely different way in order to fit how the student learns best (even for when I work with siblings! I know they often have completely different styles of learning and strengths) to fit each student. 

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I have found that a majority of students who haven't started working with me rely on simply memorizing the facts. I, as an instructor, instead focus more on understanding the foundations that explain why a fact they were told to memorize is true. Not only does the student remember it better, but they can also extrapolate to other ideas, which is likely how it will show up on an exam. This approach is especially important for tests like the SAT and ACT, where understanding the test and its processes is essential to success. In addition to coaching students on core strategies and concepts, I bring in real-world examples and help students draw connections between ideas. With subjects like math and science, especially chemistry and physics, there are very abstract topics that are not intuitive to all students, so by connecting them to something they are familiar with, they now have an anchor point for that information and can retain it so much easier.  My favorite part about tutoring is helping students gain confidence and achieve success in subjects that often seem overwhelming or even impossible to understand.

On a personal side, in addition to science and math, tennis is a huge passion of mine. I started playing at six years old and haven’t stopped since. Combining my love for the sport and my passion for teaching, I coached all throughout high school and college. I went on to play for the Division II team at UCSD, where I learned priceless time-management skills I can pass on to my students. When I am not tutoring, I love playing video games, building mechanical keyboards, solving Rubik's Cubes, and above all spending quality time with friends and family.