G.P. Chiang began tutoring at 14, as a way to earn gas money in high school. Then, in college GP found that tutoring was a great way to share skills and earn money for tuition. Now, GP prepares to leave Stanford, with an MBA and an MA in Education and a start-up in motion. “From high school to grad school, tutoring has been a constant source of financial support and personal growth, especially now, as I start my own parenting education start up, tutoring has been a constant source of financial support and personal growth.”
“What I didn’t expect, is that what I started doing at 14, would lead me down a long path to my life’s work in education.”
GP has been tutoring for over a decade on a wide range of topics, with an equally wide range of students. “My youngest student was 8, and my oldest student was an executive of a well established healthcare center in China. At each phase of my life, I brought my own learning and growth to my tutoring style, and in return, my students helped me learn about myself.”
GP used tutoring as a way to mentor others, “In high school, I applied my interests in speech and debate to teach other immigrant children SAT English, speaking and writing.” GP learned to use her unique Asian-American insights to teach student engagement to other non-native English speakers with similar life experiences. “In the early years of my undergraduate at Yale, I tutored a pair of adopted Chinese girls living with a non-Chinese family who wanted them to understand their biological heritage.”
At the end of college GP tutored an executive from China in English conversation and pronunciation. He said he learned more from her than from the decades of English classes he’d taken. “I learned from him to have confidence that my empathy and past experiences of overcoming my own challenges bring value to my students, regardless of age or other societal hierarchical constructs. When I worked as a consultant at McKinsey, I coached college students on their job search process, focusing especially on Asian students hoping to find jobs in the US. Those coaching relationships helped me reflect and find gratitude for my own upbringing and undergraduate experience that gave me the courage to choose a path that feels right for me.”
GP wanted to understand how to really enable others, so she went to Stanford for an MBA and MA in Education, precisely to make this happen. At Stanford, she continued to tutor and coach in a variety of topics. “As I leave Stanford with a formal degree in what I knew all along, (that enabling others -through Education- to be their best is what matters most to me) I am emboldened by my years of tutoring to know that I can and will be able to support myself doing what I love.”
GP looks back on her time as a tutor, and forward to her promising career in business and education, “as I take the plunge and begin building my own startup that equips parents to better communicate and engage with their teens, I am beyond thankful for the financial support and doors that tutoring has opened for me throughout the years. I am even more thankful for my students who have shared their time and stories with me, and helped me discover a love for teaching that will last a lifetime.
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