A while back I sat down with Ray Nufer from Nexus, the student newspaper at Camosun College, for a profile on my path from Camosun student to instructional assistant to running Heywood Academies.
You can read the full article on the Nexus website here:
Camosun alumnus shares love of learning through tutoring
Here’s some of what we talked about.
Failing My First Calculus Test
People sometimes assume that tutors were always good at school. That wasn’t my experience.
When I started at Camosun, the transition was rough. I struggled in my courses early on and failed my first calculus test. That was the moment where I had to decide whether I was going to walk away or commit completely.
I committed. By second year I was getting straight A+ grades and won a few academic awards along the way. That turnaround is a big part of why I believe students can fix things faster than they think, because I’ve been on both sides of it.
The Advice I Gave to First Year Students
The biggest thing we talked about for new students was scheduling. If you’re coming into college from high school and you’ve never really had to study, you need structure right from the start. Without it, there’s no way to keep up with assignments, prepare for tests, and still get enough sleep.
That advice comes directly from my own first semester, where I learned it the hard way.
37 Applications, Zero Responses
We also talked about co-op, which ended up shaping my whole career. My placements took me from a refrigeration startup, where I watched a product go from an idea to something real being used in industry, to fleet engineering at BC Transit, to the machine shop at UVic.
But getting that first co-op job was a grind. I had good grades, I was volunteering, and I customized my resume and cover letter for every position. I sent out 37 applications and didn’t hear back from a single one.
What finally worked was talking to people. I found a teacher at Camosun who needed help with a project, and he brought me on as a co-op student. The lesson stuck with me: sending out resumes is not a guaranteed path to anything. Talking to teachers, students, and anyone else you know gets you further.
Why I Started Tutoring
By the time I finished my diploma at Camosun and my degree at UVic, I had spent over five years in school. It felt like there should be a way to take everything I learned and pass it on to people coming up behind me.
That’s what Heywood Academies is. I still work at Camosun as a physics instructional assistant, and the tutoring company keeps growing. Both jobs come down to the same thing: helping students get through material that once gave me trouble too.
Thanks to Nexus
Thanks to Ray Nufer and the Nexus team for the interview. If you’re a Camosun student, Nexus is worth following. They cover campus news, student life, and local stories every issue.
And if you’re a Camosun or UVic student who could use some help with math, physics, or engineering courses, that’s exactly what we do.