Richard Sebastian-Coleman

I bring ten years of experience working as an environmental engineer. As a field, environmental engineering works at the intersection of traditional engineering methods, legal regulation, and societal wants and expectations. I am therefore fluent in communicating between the theoretical and practical within maths, physics, chemistry, and biology. I can also teach in more advanced topics within environmental engineering, such as air, water, and waste treatment, ecology, landfill design, and stormwater management.

My undergraduate programme gave me the opportunity to work as a physics teaching assistant and private tutor for almost three years. Within my professional experience, I was frequently the team ambassador, designated to explain new or changing programmes and policies. Now pursuing a Master's degree at the University of Manchester, I am looking forward to resuming a level of formal teaching.

I teach in a basic Socratic method. I ask questions to find out what a student's current level of understand is, ask questions to push just beyond that current understanding, and accelerate or slow down depending on how quickly a student picks up the new information. I try to find what makes a student passionate about a subject and then teach towards that passion. If they love a theory but have no idea how it relates to the real world, I have plenty of examples. Or if they enjoy tackling real world problems, I can demonstrate how understanding theory will broaden horizons. I have the privilege to tutor in subjects that I am myself passionate about, so it is not a problem to bring that passion to the classroom or a one-on-one session.