A Student Review of Stanford University

A Student Review of Stanford University The tutors behind Varsity Tutors are not just here to teach theyre sharing their college experiences as well. Lindsey is a New York City tutor and 2011 graduate of Stanford University. She holds a Bachelors degree in English and Italian and tutors many subjects, specializing inLiterature tutoring, Public Speaking tutoring, Italian tutoring, and others. Check out her review of Stanford University: VT: Describe the campus setting and transportation options. How urban or rural is the campus? Did you feel safe on campus? Are there buses or do you need a car/bike? Lindsey: Stanford Universitys campus is gorgeous! It is full of greenery year-round, and it has a nice balance between more modern-looking buildings (on the Science and Engineering Quad) and the classic sandstone quad. It is in a suburban environment, near the city of Palo Alto, and it is incredibly safe. Most students bike, because the campus is so large that walking is time-consuming. However, from my sophomore year onward, I actually walked everywhere, and I enjoyed it! Stanford University also has a free bus service, the Marguerite, to take students to the far reaches of campus and nearby places (such as downtown Palo Alto, the Caltrain station, Stanford Shopping Center, and a local Target/Walmart/grocery store). Freshmen are not allowed to bring cars, but after that, students may pay for parking permits; restrictions and prices depend on where you park on campus. I had a car my junior and senior years, and it made life a little more convenient, but it is definitely not a necessi ty. VT: How available are the professors, academic advisers, and teaching assistants? Lindsey: They are wonderful! My experience was consistently that the academic staff at Stanford University wanted to see me succeed and be happy, and they were willing to help however they could. Teaching assistants were approachable, and they acted as good intermediaries between students and any particularly intimidating professors. Honestly, I did not find my freshman (general) advising to be useful, but I know most of my friends did. My major advisers were fantastic, and I am still in touch with both of them. I would encourage students everywhere to form close bonds with their major advisers, as well as their favorite professors! VT: How would you describe the dorm life rooms, dining options, location, socialization opportunities with other students? Lindsey: Stanford University makes a big effort to create community on campus, especially for freshman and transfer students. Something like 95% of undergraduates live in campus housing, and there are a wide variety of options. Freshmen mostly live in all-freshmen dorms, though there are several cultural theme houses that house freshmen and upperclassmen. As a freshman, you are guaranteed to have a roommate; there are no singles. Room size and number of roommates varies based on your dorm and your room in the dorm. I had one roommate in a teeny tiny room, but they have since remodeled the dorm and made the freshman rooms bigger! In upperclassmen housing, there are plenty of options for getting a single room. Dorm staff are generally incredible people who make a big effort to get to know their residents and plan fun activities. In freshman dorms, especially at the beginning of the year, these activities are usually focused on helping students get to know campus and the surrounding areas (for example, a scavenger hunt in nearby San Francisco). Most dorms also host at least one event per year, and some upperclassmen houses host at least one per quarter. There is not a huge Greek scene at Stanford University, but there are a handful of fraternities and sororities. There are tons of opportunities for socialization! All dorms have common areas and lounges (most including a television and/or some kind of table game like pool), and these serve as gathering places for residents to socialize informally. Somehow, hallways also end up getting pretty crowded late at night with people just hanging out and taking a study break. Stanford University also has tons of clubs, from sports, to dance, to arts. I made some very close friendships through my extracurriculars, and I would recommend that everyone join at least one student group. All dorms are associated with a dining hall, and the food quality is pretty high. There has been a huge push for a wide variety of healthy options, including Kosher and Halal main dishes at every meal. There is also at least one dining hall that is completely nut free for students with nut allergies. All dorms also have laundry facilities (sometimes shared with nearby dorms), and laundry is free for students! VT: Which majors/programs are best represented and supported?What did you study and why? Did the university do a good job supporting your particular area of study? Lindsey: Stanford University is gaining a reputation as a science and engineering school, and for good reason. Those departments have superb faculty, do interesting research, and have tons of money. They definitely get the most attention, and that attention is well deserved. However, this sometimes overshadows the quality and variety of Stanford Universitys humanities and social sciences majors. I double-majored in Italian and English: Creative Writing, and I felt incredible support from my departments. Both Italian and English were consistently bringing in world-renowned guest speakers, had ample money available to support undergraduate research, and had a distinguished (yet accessible) faculty. What I liked best about being in two comparatively small departments (I was one of two Italian majors, and one of about 30 English majors) was the amount of personal attention and support I got. All my professors knew me by name, understood the body of my work over the course of four years, and knew how to challenge me. They found creative ways to help me get academic credit for internships, and they helped me navigate the web of paperwork when I needed to transfer credits from abroad. VT: How helpful is the Career Centerand other student support services?Do many reputable companies recruit on campus? Lindsey: I wish I had taken advantage of the Career Center before my junior year! Though it definitely does skew toward finance, consulting, and technology jobs, they have tons of resources for nonprofits, education, and other fuzzy fields. They hold career fairs frequently, at least every quarter, as well as on-campus recruiting sessions. In addition, they have consultation services, such as resume and cover letter review, and they maintain an online database of job and internship postings. I found my first job out of college through them! I would highly recommend that all freshmen meet with a career counselor at their career center, even if they do not know what they want to do after college (I did not until my junior year!). VT: How are the various study areas such aslibraries, the student union, and dorm lounges? Are they over-crowded, easily available, spacious? Lindsey: There are many places to study on Stanford Universitys campus, from big libraries (that can get a bit over-crowded, especially on weekends) to small, quiet subject libraries (I loved studying in the art library, because it was always empty!). The historic Green Library is beautiful, and it has a secret reading room at the very top (the Bender Room), that is great for quiet, individual work. There are ample group study spaces, but you need to reserve most ahead of time. VT: Describe the surrounding town. What kinds of outside establishments / things to do are there that make it fun, boring, or somewhere in between?To what extent do students go to the downtown area of the city versus staying near campus? Lindsey: Sadly, Palo Alto is not really a college town. Though the campus is maybe a mile away, it is not integrated with Palo Alto at all, and students often do not need to leave (campus has almost everything you need). Palo Alto is pretty expensive, and it does not have too many places that offer student deals, but I did enjoy going there to study from time to time, for a change of pace. VT: How big or small is the student body? Were you generally pleased or displeased with the typical class sizes? Lindsey: Stanford Universitys undergraduate population is small (for a university so large)around 7,000, I believe. Most of my classes were small, which is more typical for the humanities. I loved the small class size, and even my big lecture classes never had more than about 200 students. All those big classes also had required sections, with approximately 10-12 students. Stanford University feels like a small place, and you can easily find yourself taking classes with the same students all four years. However, if you branch out and take a course outside your major, you will meet tons of wonderful, interesting new people! VT: Describe one memorable experience with a professor and/or class. Perhaps one you loved the most or one youregretthe most. Lindsey: Oh goodness, I will never forget this! While we were reading a series of Arthurian myths for freshman English, one of the professors compared himself to Lancelot, and his wifes ex-husband to poor Arthur, who had Guinevere stolen away from him! Check out Lindseys tutoring profile. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the views of Varsity Tutors.

Tutorfair The story behind us

Tutorfair The story behind us On a sunny winters day in January 2012 I met with Andrew who showed me some concepts for a new website that he’d come up with. He was a parent who’d found the process of finding tutors for his own children both confusing and a little hit-and-miss. His concept was a website that would allow parents to actually browse for great tutors and then book them. I agreed that there wasn’t anything quite like it at the time, but what really captured my imagination was the concept that the company would give tutoring to children who otherwise couldn’t afford it. Hence the ‘fair’ bit of Tutorfair. In my 14 years of tutoring, most of the tutors I’d known had either  moved on to other work or set up agencies. I’d not set up my own simply because I had very little interest in running a company. Yet here was a concept that seemed so simple, and so likely to do some real good, that I found myself getting very excited. If there are billions of dollars being put into tutoring worldwide every year, why not take some of that money and give it to the kids who need it most? Andrew Ground wasn’t just a parent, he had a background in marketing and had been involved in building the hugely successful UK company LOVEFiLM. He introduced me to Edd Stockwell, a fantastically energetic web entrepreneur who’d been doing a large amount of research into the education sector. In our first proper meeting in a tapas restaurant in Old Street we discussed how this could work, and thus Tutorfair was born. Over the years, I’ve been fortunate enough to meet most of the highest paid and best regarded tutors in the world. In fact, many are close friends. When we pitched the idea to those in Britain, most were hugely excited and almost everyone wanted to help in any way they could. At the very least, we’ve been able to help Andrew find tutors for his kids! Beyond individual tutors, there are many tutoring agencies. Most of the best in London are run by friends of mine or people I’d known professionally for years. We weren’t sure how they’d see Tutorfair, but the response was amazing. These professional tutoring agencies do a good job of finding and retaining great tutors so it was essential we had them on board too. Most seemed very open to our concept and loved the idea that if we worked together we could actually do some good. They’d list their recommended tutors on the website, and thus open up their tutor networks to parents wanting to book online. Together we agreed the promise that for every student who pays we’d give tutoring to a child who couldn’t afford it. Our aim has been to assemble the best tutors in London to kick us off. We meet all of them, check their documents and film videos of them so parents can get a better idea of what they’re like. We also offer training and mentoring for those looking to develop their tutoring into a career, and this has been a particularly fun part for me. The next challenge was how to arrange the free tuition. The solution was simple, rather than try find these children ourselves why not look for schools and charities that had already identified the children most in need of our help? I took the rest of 2012 to meet with various schools, charities and organisations. I went into classrooms, taught with children who’d never been given any personal tutoring and we took the time to look into what was working well. Once we’d earmarked the teams who seemed to make the most *real* difference to children’s lives: we pledged our support, our tutors and our time. Fast forward to early 2013, the website is live, we are receiving bookings and we’re already running a number of initiatives for the Tutorfair Foundation, our new charity. It’s an incredibly exciting time! Tutoring has been proven to be an incredibly effective education tool* but up until now it’s something that only the most wealthy can afford. Hopefully we can start to make it fair! In this blog we’ll keep you updated on how the company is going and what we’re doing with the charity. We’ll also be providing tips, tutoring resources (for students educators) and sharing with you what we find is getting results. We hope you enjoy! * (Bloom, 1984)