Tala S

I am a Jordanian senior working toward the American Diploma. I live in Saudi Arabia, where I attend an international school, but I plan to continue my higher education in the US. I value education, and I am especially interested in biology, as well as chemistry and math. I enjoy playing the piano, something I have done since I was a child.

I have been the top student in my grade at my school (which includes over 200 students in each grade) for many years. In my sophomore year of high school, I self-studied AP Biology and got a 5 on the exam. In my junior year, I also took the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth AP Chemistry course and received a grade of 96% (A) on it and a 5 on the AP exam. I have taken the ACT twice and, on my second try, scored a composite of 35 (Math: 35, Science: 34, English 36, Reading: 36). I have also taken UCSD's Intro to Epidemiology credit course in the summer of 2021 and completed it with a GPA of 4.00 (A+).

Moreover, I participated in the International competition Conrad Challenge: Health & Nutrition category (2021-2022). My team and I wrote a 7000+ word paper, on Neurodot, a product we innovated that uses quantum dots to communicate with patients in a vegetative state, and we received the 2022 Conrad Challenge Innovator Certificate. At the moment, I am working with my twin sister on a literature review on ways to improve the efficacy of CRISPR/Cas9-mediated homology-directed repair in basal cells of patients with cystic fibrosis. We are completing the paper under the guidance of a research mentor at the International Research Institute of North Carolina.

I have been working with The Phoenix School in Salem, Massachusetts, for about three years and counting. In addition to staying connected to the school by participating in various events and projects, my sister and I host weekly one-hour sessions with the school over Zoom. When I was a freshman in high school, we successfully designed and taught a beginner's Arabic course to its students. We gave a year-long course on Medieval Islamic Medicine the following year. We used a number of different books, research papers, and articles to prepare the course and incorporated a hands-on activity in almost every session. In the past year and for this year too, we host sessions on various biological and cultural topics, from forensic science to Islamic art. The school's innovative teaching methods, which include an emphasis on project-based learning as well as placement of students from K-8 in one room, push me to experiment with and incorporate different learning methods in the sessions I host. They also help me develop my skills in teaching and communication.

I have been tutoring at Schoolhouse.world for over a year now, and I believe that Schoolhouse is an impactful and extremely valuable platform. I am here because I wish to continue to help others by tutoring.