Jessica R.

Learning with Jessica

How we’ll work together

“Calculus isn't fifty formulas — it's one idea, the limit, wearing fifty costumes, and my whole job is to catch it changing clothes so a derivative and an integral stop looking like strangers. Like a chess opening, once you see why each move is forced, you stop guessing and start playing.”

A little background

Jessica’s story

Jessica scored a 61 on her first BC Calculus test at J.P. Stevens High in Edison. Her mother, an actuary, put away the textbook and pulled out a chessboard, making Jessica defend why each move was forced by the one before it. That habit — nothing is allowed unless the previous step demands it — took her to a 5 on the AP exam and into Cornell's math program, where she TA'd Math 1110 for three years and became known for the Malott Hall office hours that ran past midnight because nobody wanted to leave with a gap. She still plays first-desk violin in a Boston community orchestra and holds an 1840 USCF chess rating, and she'll tell you both are really the same skill: sitting calmly with a position you don't understand yet until it cracks open.