About Me
My name is Michael Watanabe, and I’ve been a tutor for three years. I’ve taught both college and high school subjects, but my favorite thing to teach is SAT/ACT. It’s where I feel like I can make the most difference. As someone with lots of recent experience on both sides of the classroom, I’ve learned how to make complicated topics simple and easy understand. I’m very practical, and my approach is to play to your strengths and focus on areas where we can get the most improvement with the least amount of work.
In my other life, I am an aerospace engineer at NASA specializing in rocket engines. I hold Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Georgia Tech (both in Aerospace Engineering), and I graduated in 2023.
As both a federal employee and someone as who works with kids, I do have a verified FBI background check. Feel free to view this and my previous ratings and feedback on my Wyzant tutoring profile below!
https://www.wyzant.com/Tutors/MichaelSATPrep
FAQs
What teaching experience do you have?
I got started in graduate school as a teaching assistant for four senior-level aerospace engineering courses, and I really enjoyed the experience! I worked individually or in small groups with well over 100 students in those two years. Then, I took up tutoring privately outside of the classroom. I’ve taught various engineering courses, physics, chemistry, pre-calc, calculus I, II, and III, algebra 1 and 2, geometry, trigonometry, and of course, both the SAT and ACT. I’ve worked with about 40 students one-on-one in private tutoring. You can see a portion of these on my Wyzant profile above!
What did you score on the SAT/ACT?
I took both the SAT and the ACT in 2017. I scored a 1560/1600 on my SAT and a 35/36 on my ACT, both of which are in the 99th percentile.
Did you study for the SAT?
Nope, and that was a mistake! While it worked out well for me that time, I should not have left such an important event up to chance. Like it or not, standardized testing has a huge impact on the schools you will get into and, potentially, the amount of scholarship money you’ll get. I understood this better the second time around when I took my graduate school entrance exam (GRE), and I absolutely studied for that one!
Did you always like math/science/reading/writing?
Definitely not, and surprisingly, I think that is my greatest strength in tutoring. Lots of subjects did not come easily for me in high school and in college, so I understand how that feels. However, I also know what it takes to overcome those struggles. The fact that these topics didn’t always come naturally to me ultimately made me much better at being able to explain them!