1,320 ratings
Calculus nerd
Tamarin O.
I make calculus feel like motion you can reason about.
Education
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
B.S. in Mathematics (concentration in Applied Analysis)
Hometown
Newton, Massachusetts
A note from Tamarin
“Every calculus problem is really only asking two things — how fast is this changing, and how much has piled up — wrapped in notation designed to look scarier than it is. My whole job is to teach you to spot the quantity the problem is hiding, because the moment you can name it, the symbols stop being a wall and start being directions.”
Tamarin’s story
As a junior at Newton North I could grind out a derivative on autopilot and still have no idea what I'd just computed. I scored a 2 on the AP Calc practice exam that January and quietly assumed I wasn't a math person. What changed me was the MIT Mystery Hunt — I'd been on a Newton puzzle team since I was 15, and one Saturday it clicked that a related-rates problem is just a logic puzzle in disguise: there's always a hidden quantity the problem won't say out loud, and once you name it the notation goes quiet. I chased that down to MIT, earned a spot on the Putnam team, and now I coach calculus the way I train for Boston (three finishes, 3:14 PR): never blow up the first mile, never panic at mile 18.
What students say
4.9 ★ · 1,320 ratings
“Went from a 61 to a 94 on my BC Calc final. I'd been stuck on related rates for a month and Tamarin made me circle the quantity the problem wasn't telling me — sounds simple, but it's the reason integration by parts finally stopped feeling random.”
“Dev got a 2 on his AB practice exam in January and a 5 on the real test in May. What sold me: in the first session Tamarin figured out he understood limits fine but had never actually pictured what a derivative is. She rebuilt that one idea instead of drilling more problems. Twenty-two sessions, worth every one.”
“Calc II was at a 56% at midterm and tanking my GPA. Taylor series were the wall. Tamarin slowed everything down — her thing is 'don't sprint the first mile' — and walked the convergence tests one at a time until I could tell them apart. Finished the course at 88%. Wish I'd booked her in week one instead of week six.”