I’ve had a lot of jobs. I mean, a lot. In my short 21 years, I’ve been a cashier, a hostess, a server, a fashion PR intern, a writing intern...the list goes on and on, but the most meaningful job I’ve ever had is being a writing tutor. I work for a program at MSU Denver that tutors students with disabilities, students with low-incomes and first generation to college students. These students have taught me more than I will probably ever realize, but here are a few of the lessons that I am aware of:
1. You can’t take education for granted
My high school teachers used to always tell all of us 12th graders how well they were preparing us for college. I never quite believed them until I realized how unprepared others might be. I have been creating essay outlines and citing sources in MLA since middle school and had naively assumed that others had been doing the same. It wasn’t until I started tutoring that my mind opened up, and I realized that not every person has the same education level going into college.
2. Grammar is HARD
In my experience, most people can’t verbalize the difference between a colon, a semicolon and a comma. Even though I know the difference between colons, semicolons and commas, explaining these differences to someone else is an entirely different ballgame. Being a tutor continually tests your knowledge on certain concepts you might think you know, and it also shows you how gray some of those concepts might be. Seeing the whole picture is a lot more challenging than it might initially seem.
3. How to be a better writer
One of the best parts of being a tutor (besides helping others, of course) is that you are able to understand your topic better than you ever have before. Being able to teach others about your topic opens your mind to learning it in new ways that you have never even thought about. As a tutor, you have to be flexible in the ways you explain a topic, as not everyone will be able to understand it in the same way. Not only are you helping others understand your topic while tutoring, you’re helping yourself understand your topic in new ways.
4. Everyone has a voice
Most people think that writing tutors are there to tidy up your punctuation and make sure you used “effect” instead of “affect.” Sure, we do those things, but I’ve found that my main job is to help my students uncover their natural writing voice that might have been buried after years of their teachers belaboring writing. When you strip away organizational issues and grammatical errors, students are often left with a piece of writing that symbolizes a piece of themselves. It is something that the student has invested time into, which means that every piece that you read has a little bit of something original inside of it, a little bit of their voice, a little bit of magic.
