My First Tutoring

This afternoon is one of the most challenging afternoon since I came to the US. I acted as a tutor to an undergraduate student with her economics homework. This is my first step trying to enter the Americans' circle. I was always worried about my English, my accent, and other cultural differences. But, it is time to move forward.

I went over the whole microeconomics book and prepare myself with some tutoring words before we met. Yet, this afternoon gave me as much shame as delight of success.

I was always proud of my clear logic structure and high score in economics field. But when I faced my girl's problem, I was totally shocked.  For some questions, I cannot interpret her with the most basic logic because of my obscure comprehension on them. For some other questions, like something on international trade and tax, I felt so strange to the field that I even has to ask her what she had learnt in class. I was confident to my store of knowledge in economics field both in the whole picture and the most basic logic. That really a caution to a graduate economics students like me.

However at the same time, I was delight that I overcame a great difficulty explaining questions and logics in English. I felt the language part of the brain is hot enough to break down! Whenever my girl showed her agreement to my words, I felt a little content. For the first of time, I satisfied myself by helping people to understand the world.

At the same time, I found a great difference in the undergraduate education in China and the US. In my undergraduate economics course, more attention was paid on concepts and equations. Whereas in this American girl's course, logic and empirical facts were the ones to be expressed. I cannot tell which is good or bad; but this difference tells me that the logic between the concepts, which is very important to the whole picture of economics, lacks my attention, and maybe most Chinese students' attention.

Anyway, this is my first tutoring experience. Thanks to Taylor.