POWAN Initiative

POWAN Tutor

June 2020 • Riverside, CA

What I liked

POWAN is a great working experience filled with passionate and dedicated volunteers. I have been with POWAN for over two years as a tutor and operations member. The most rewarding part of being a POWAN tutor is being able to see your student learn and grow in a subject they struggled with. I have also joined POWAN operations lead group to assist with POWAN’s future endeavors.

What I wish was different

Since I have been with POWAN since its inception, the most challenging part was communicating with parents via email to schedule a tutoring session with their child. It would often lead to miscommunication or individuals not being able to respond on time. Since then POWAN has been undergoing website changes to allow students to directly schedule a tutoring session with a POWAN tutor in under five minutes.

Advice

I recommend anyone interested to join POWAN as it is a worthwhile and meaningful experience. You don’t even have to join as a tutor, POWAN has many positions open to be on the marketing, operations, or tech teams.

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POWAN Tutor

August 2020 - June 2022 • Riverside, CA

What I liked

After serving as a POWAN Tutor for almost two years, the role is professionally and personally rewarding. My experience at POWAN has been invaluable in terms of allowing me to develop critical interpersonal skills that have made me a competitive applicant for numerous opportunities on my journey to becoming a physician. My favorite moments as a POWAN Tutor were when my students demonstrated resilience and growth. For example, a second-grader I tutored lacked confidence in reading at the beginning of the school year. By the end of the year, she grew to love reading. Being able to nurture that potential and see the student grow is what makes being a POWAN Tutor so rewarding.

What I wish was different

The beginning of my tutoring two years ago was rough in the sense that POWAN was a newly formed organization and the procedures were not completely refined yet. However, they made organizational and logistical improvements throughout my two years of tutoring, such as streamlining student access to tutoring services and improving the website interface to make it more accessible. POWAN is still continuing to grow and learn from its hiccups, something that I am glad to see as someone who has been here from almost the beginning.

Advice

One piece of advice I would have is to ensure that you maintain proper communication with everyone. Whether it is with the student, their family, or the POWAN board, good and consistent communication is critical to ensure that you get the most out of this experience.

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