Tutor Time Delaware: Fill & Download for Free

Practice, practice, practice. The best place to receive extra help when you’re in crunch time is Khan Academy (they have partnered with CollegeBoard). In doing practice problems with Khan Academy, they will provide you with extra problems where you need the most assistance. If you are a junior, you can also try using Thumbtack - Consider it done to look for local tutors who can assist you in-person and help you to achieve your full potential. If you’re in the Philadelphia/Princeton/Delaware area, give us a call!Educational Services 610–687–0627 www.PrepWithES.com

I served in AmeriCorps NCCC in 2005. (Ten years ago. Wow.) It changed me more than any year of my life before or since.If you've done your research, you know the basic breakdown: Teams of 18-to-24-year-olds travel around the country to work for non-profits. In a year, you'll work with several organizations, with each project lasting one to two months. I worked for Habitat for Humanity in Connecticut, an elementary school in Maryland, a summer day camp in Brooklyn, and an organic farm in Rhode Island; I was also called to Mississippi and Alabama as part of the Red Cross's response to Hurricane Katrina. Throughout the year, there were other service opportunities as well, including staffing a homeless shelter overnight, building a playground, and collecting some of the most vile garbage I have ever seen. (Used condoms and frozen dirty diapers were involved.) This represented an enormous breadth of experiences, from hanging drywall in the snow to tutoring special education students to peeling garlic to writing press releases.I cannot overstate how fantastic this all sounds in a job interview. You are set for the next few years.Unlike AmeriCorps Vista, NCCC does not intentionally impoverish you ... but you aren't earning anything. Housing is provided by AmeriCorps or by the organizations you're working for. Hardly the Ritz, of course. My team's accommodations included a seminary, a public housing high-rise, and camp cabins. The Red Cross did put me up in nice motels. As for other necessities, you get an adequate food allowance. You buy groceries and prepare meals as a team, family-style. There will be a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and spaghetti dinners, but you won't be hungry. They clothe you -- t-shirts, hoodies, and BDUs. You are paid a small stipend during the program for incidentals. Think cell phone bill, not car payment. And, of course, the education award afterwards, which unfortunately has not kept pace with rising university tuition, but is still pretty nice.A fellow corps member and I model the nifty fashions.None of that really expresses what it's like.In many ways, it was like freshman year in some entirely predictable gross-out college comedy. Sex, drama, and binge drinking abounded. During orientation week, I wrote:Throw all these active, energetic, diverse kids together, almost totally isolated from friends and family and, indeed, any outside interaction aside from the townies at the nearby watering hole, and the hormones are bound to swirl.The powers that be are wise to it. Every year, there are "Ameribabies" and "Amerimarriages," and, less consequentially, countless hookups and dramatic entanglements. We are going to get a talk next week on STDs, where we will apparently be given condoms, male and (ugh) female.The team leaders, we have learned, have had extensive training sessions on the policy surrounding "fraternization" - namely, that any hanky-panky or even especially close friendship between team leaders and corps members is strictly forbidden. The lesson summary derives from our respective uniform colors, green for TLs and grey for CMs: "Grey on grey, okay; green on green, okay; grey on green, no way." One of my seven housemates, whose wholesome Wisconsin accent masks a naughty sense of humor, mused, "So green on grey is fine? We've all got scarves and bedposts."Technically, any sex is forbidden in Americorps housing, but no one expects that to be followed. "There are the couches," I suggested, meaning that people whose roommates were getting busy would have somewhere comfortable to sleep. My roommate raised her eyebrows forbiddingly. "You'd better go home with townies," she said, "because I'm not sleeping on any couch."Later, regarding alcohol:Fortysomething professionals see us at work, all capable, motivated, and cheerful, and imagine turning their children into someone like us. AmeriCorps as boot camp. As vision quest. There's some truth to these impressions, but I worry about the unquestioning trust these grownups put in the program.This Red Cross lady told me her son was currently in a rehab/service program, overcoming a marijuana addiction. I sighed and leaned in. "Let me be candid for a minute," I said. "When we get bored, we sit around and come up with 'alternative' AmeriCorps slogans. One of them is 'AmeriCorps*NCCC: Turning Potheads into Alcoholics Since 1994.' The truth is, there's a culture of drinking here that would make me very hesitant to recommend it to anyone with substance issues.""Oh, well, he doesn't drink," she began, a bit bewildered.He will, I wanted to say. Instead, I told her that if her son was already interested in service, AmeriCorps could be a great opportunity for him, but he should consider the wisdom of going into an environment where binge drinking and casual alcoholism are the norm.And drama, of course:A "stormy" interaction unfolded over spackle and paint trays this morning. During our mini-spike in Delaware, I told everyone that one of my biggest pet peeves is "malicious shit-talking." I'd already had to remind them of this once. Today, it was more of the same — the same person being shit-talked, the same people doing the shit-talking. So I said something, and it stopped, but by speaking up, I loosed an unacknowledged tension that turned the room snappish, then silent. We are learning to push each other's buttons, and we are no longer willing to bite our tongues when discomfited.A drinking game called Edward Fortyhands. It's not much of a game. You just drink.All this was inevitable, given the age range involved. Some of us were fresh out of college and used to debauchery; others were away from home for the first time, navigating temptations and conflicts they'd never encountered before.It wasn't all screwing, boozing, and fighting. We worked, day in and day out, with too much supervision and peer pressure to even consider slacking off. We worked hard. It could be physically grueling:I almost fainted yesterday while picking tomatoes in 90-degree heat. I'd been drinking water regularly and everything, but I slept for shit the night before and didn't really eat enough breakfast. Today was bad, too. Almost as hot, and we were on the upper field, digging up rocks and tossing them in the big tractor's bucket. The rocks had to be removed so they could mow and plow the field, which meant, naturally, that the field was unmowed and unplowed: a jungle of six-foot-high pokeberry and goldrenrod and milkweed and grasses, so we could barely find and unearth the rocks in the first place. Mildly hyperventilated a few times.Psychologically, too:An anxiety attack drove me from work today. I'm not even sure of its immediate cause, except it's all wrapped up with my frustrations at work and the pointless and awkward meeting we had last night to discuss the general lack of respect on the team. There are echoes of the attacks I'd have during college, when, having fallen dreadfully behind in my classes, I'd more often than not drop them so as to ease the nervous terror in my stomach. When I feel like I'm fucking up at something, I want to get as far from it as possible.And then, coming just often enough to keep us from quitting, some days provided a sense of accomplishment:I run around Miss [Redacted]'s class like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to keep one kid on task on one side of the room, and to teach another kid to do a line graph on the other. But at the end of class, I receive cute notes from two students: "Thank you for helping us," with my name colored in bubble letters. Then, in writing, Mrs. [Redacted] planned a mini-lesson on hooks, but the sub is clearly unprepared. I volunteer to wing it. It feels good to be the one at the overhead again.One student asks me to help her in Ms. [Redacted]'s math class. It's more decimal-multiplication, and it seems the student, who is chronically absent (apparently because her mother will call her in sick for next to nothing and likes to take her on midweek trips to New York) has missed instruction on estimating. Thinking quick, I draw a number line and explain that the numbers under 5 round down because they "live closer" to the smaller number, and 5 and over round up because they "live closer" to the larger number. She seems to be catching on, but she has a ways to go with it.Gathering 'round the dittos for group tutoring in language arts.Mostly, though, the year was about places and people. I spent time in New York City, Washington, Baltimore, Hartford, Providence, Jackson, Montgomery; and smaller towns whose names I struggle to remember -- Brookhaven, Aberdeen, Newark (Delaware, not New Jersey).Today on Alabama 80 West, I opened my eyes and saw through the backseat window above me blue sky and telephone poles. Clapton was down at the crossroads. Up in the front seat, my teammates, neither of whom had been to the deep south before, were goggling at the sights. I sat up and raked the curls from my face. Here was a territory at once foreign and pleasantly familiar. Piggly-Wiggly semis, Pork Palaces, confederate landmarks, strip clubs with gravel walks, tin-roofed shacks all grown over with kudzu, and trailer parks that might as well be called "Til the Next Tornado Comes." Sonic, Wal-Mart, Dollar General, Baptist chuch after Baptist church, and everywhere the Red Cross logo on trucks and cars like ours.I like this place, which echoes with my favorite vacations. I like these boys, who have hung truck-stop novelty condoms from the rearview. I like the Emergency Services ID around my neck. We have a fine car and a place where we're needed. It's a good day.Splitting logs in Delware. This is the most exciting thing that happens in Delaware.Our assignments introduced us to vibrant, dedicated people. The teacher who hid her aching frustration behind smiles and then cried when she got home at night. The community organizer who rolled a joint while driving us around town in a beat-up van. The cute construction worker who charmed me but whose Dubya cap and Kennebunkport bumper sticker disqualified him from further fraternization. The homeless woman with schizophrenia who avidly watched basketball and called herself a little red Corvette.Then we met Kathy. Thin-skinned and grey, she sat on the uneven brick patio with a regal bearing. Her smiles were full and easy, like those of a child who has not yet learned that happiness must sometimes be feigned. Contentment radiated from her. She warmed me every time her eyes met mine. And her way of speaking was guilelessly enchanting: She would often pause midsentence, closing her eyes as if we weren't circled around watching her intently, and continue only when she had found the perfect word for what she was trying to express. "Working here is like" — her smile lingering at the corners of her mouth, she stopped, bent her head for a moment, and then, her eyes widened and papery hands cupped, the word like a revelation — "a bowl. It contains so much."She started to muse about the perpetual existence of need in the world, and said, "When I die, poverty will still exist. But is that a good thing, or a bad thing?"Well, I'm just going to say this, though I know it will sound strange. I think it's a good thing. I think that the reason suffering exists is because helping others allows us to become more complete."Are any of you Christian? I'm not. Let me tell you a story I heard from a Jesuit friend, who had it told to him by a Jewish rabbi. In the Christian myth, God created the sky, and the Bible says 'and it was good.' Actually, what the Bible says is 'tov,' which doesn't mean 'good,' exactly, but instead, 'done.' The sky: tov. Done. The earth: tov. The birds, all flying through the air: tov. But then God creates Man: and no 'tov'! No 'tov' for Man. You see, we're not complete."Among the corps members, friendships formed, and stormed, and re-formed, the social patterns shifting from week to week but somehow inevitably knitting into a whole. Just a few days before graduation, I looked around a party,and suddenly it was like I'd gained a second sight. I could perceive the emotional ties that connected everyone there. Some were thin, glittering filaments; others strong cords, frayed but unbroken. Together they formed a living web of human history. And in all likelihood, I would never again be caught up in one like it -- so thick with love and stories and respect that to escape from it seemed as impossible as it was undesirable. In that moment, my insecurities dissipated; it didn't matter about which ties led to me, or how vibrant they were in comparison to others. All that mattered was that I was here, in the midst, tied into the web in some way, and bearing witness.We all ended up quite earnest in the end, I think.A goodbye hug. (At the local watering hole, naturally.)I never successfully summarized that year, and I won't be able to now. I will close as I ended: The person who emerged was not the person who entered. I think every one of us could say that. My advice to anyone considering it, therefore, is: Engage with everything, and embrace change.

My background: I got an Honors Bachelors of Mechanical Engineering, minored in Sustainable Energy Technology, Materials Science and Engineering, and Biomedical Engineering, got an MBA with a concentration in Entrepreneurship, and did a lot of extracurriculars including varsity sports, intramurals, Blue Hen Leadership Program, and RA’ing. This was between 2010 - 2015.Academic Pressure - welcome to college, where you apply the pressure. I personally spent more time my freshman fall semester going out with friends, and less going to class and doing homework. If you’ve ever heard the saying “sleep, school, friends - choose two”, the one I didn’t choose was school. I ended up on probation from the honors program. All I got was an email saying (paraphrased) “unless you get your ish together, you’re out of honors”. I kicked it into gear, asked teachers for some extra credit, and got a 3.8 in the spring semester. If you’re someone who stresses about grades, you’ll feel pressure. If not, you won’t feel a thing. It’s best to have a healthy balance between the two.Workload - I like to think I accomplished a lot while at UD. That being said, it wasn’t easy. I’m a very efficient worker, but engineering had some weed-out courses that definitely challenged me. After freshman year I switched to school and friends, no sleep (of the three options mentioned above). However, your workload is very dependent on your course selection, and maybe even most importantly, your teacher. I consulted ratemyprofessor like it was a prophet whenever it was time to choose my class schedule. I also was allowed to pick early (had a lot of credits and was an athlete) so I got Fridays off. It’s worth mentioning that I created some study groups with kids in my class that saved my life sometimes. “Collective learning” really helps take the load off.In all, your choice of courses, relating to your major and which professors, will ultimately determine the majority of the pressure you put on yourself, and workload put upon you. But don’t let that guide your decisions! College challenges you inside and outside the classroom, and that’s how you’ll learn the most. Study groups help a lot, and academic tutors and counseling are available for those who need it.I don’t know if you’re considering UD for college or just curious, and what’s right for one person isn’t right for everyone, but UD was the absolute best choice for me. If you have any more questions about Delaware feel free to reach out on my profile. Go Blue Hens!