Jill Grzelak

Hi, my name is Jill Grzelak and I am a junior in Biological Systems Engineering and minoring in Biomedical Engineering. I started tutoring Calculus II (MATH 1226) last year. My goal was to help students learn material and practice problems from class. This is a class that most students find to be a difficult course here at Virginia Tech. I took this class my first semester freshman year and received an A in the class.

I met Scott at a Review Session for Dynamics held by the Student Success Center. We talked about our experiences with tutoring, and he told me about Scott Gong Tutoring. I realized that working alongside Scott would be best for me so that I can find the most students and therefore can help the most people. Tutoring is such a rewarding experience when you see the effect you have on students and their understanding of the class as well as their success in it. I wanted to be able to help a larger group of students in this particularly challenging course in which the material carries into other classes. Understanding the topics in Calculus II is crucial in that it is a 4-credit course with more contribution to one’s GPA than most and its material is often applied in future courses as well.

Aside from tutoring, I am part of the American Society of Agriculture and Biological Engineers (ASABE), the Quality Life Design Team, and the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) at Virginia Tech. I am also part of the Chi Omega social sorority. As far as professional experience, I have served as an Undergraduate Research Assistant in the Biological Systems Engineering Department for the past year, conducting analysis on future climate change projections using MATLAB. Additionally, over the summer I had an internship with the Department of Energy at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, NY. There, I programmed a Raspberry Pi to automate manual processes in the lab where radioisotopes are produced. They were then used in medical imaging for the diagnosis and treatment of various forms of cancer.

Overall, as an aspiring Biomedical Engineer, I have found math, and more specifically Calculus, to be a foundation that I have needed for a majority of my courses so far. That being said, I want to be able to help as many students as I can in Calculus II so that they can gain this fundamental knowledge to succeed not only in Calculus II but also in future classes they will take.