Tutoring for UBC math and physics students

First year at UBC moves fast

Large first-year math and physics sections at UBC are efficient and impersonal by design. Lectures cover a lot of ground quickly, office hours are shared with a great many other students, and the gap between "I followed that" and "I can do this alone at 11pm" is where most people get into trouble. If you are behind on WeBWorK-style problem sets or came out of a midterm knowing you had the ideas but not the execution, that is the situation this page is written for.

We are an independent tutoring service, not connected to the university in any way. What we offer is one person, working with one student, going at the speed you actually need — which is the one thing a large lecture course structurally cannot do.

UBC courses we support

First-year calculus

MATH 100, MATH 102 and MATH 104 are differential calculus courses covering the same core material with different applications — MATH 100 with physical science and engineering applications, MATH 102 with life sciences applications, and MATH 104 with business and social sciences applications. MATH 101, MATH 103 and MATH 105 are the integral calculus courses that follow on from them.

MATH 180 and MATH 184 are equivalent to MATH 100 and MATH 104 for students who arrive without high school calculus, and MATH 110 is a two-term equivalent intended for students with lower Grade 12 math grades. MATH 120 and MATH 121 are the honours first-year calculus courses, which are heavier on rigour and proof.

Linear algebra and beyond first year

We support MATH 152, MATH 221 and MATH 223 for linear algebra, and MATH 200 and MATH 253 for multivariable calculus.

Physics

PHYS 101, PHYS 117 and PHYS 131 are introductory mechanics courses. PHYS 102, PHYS 118, PHYS 153 and PHYS 158 cover electricity, magnetism and optics. PHYS 106 and PHYS 107 are the enriched first-year physics courses.

If your course is not on this list, ask — we will tell you honestly whether it is something we can support well.

Where UBC students commonly get stuck

The pattern we see most often is a student whose conceptual understanding is fine but whose algebra and trigonometry are a half-step too slow. In a lecture that is invisible. On a timed midterm with no partial credit for a sensible start, it is decisive. Sorting out fluency is usually the fastest available gain.

The second pattern is students in an honours or enriched stream who have never been asked to justify a step before. Writing a clean argument — stating what you assume, what follows, and why — is a skill, and it is very rarely taught explicitly before university.

The third is the online homework grind: hours spent guessing at inputs without ever finding out what the actual misunderstanding was. We work through the questions you got wrong until the reason becomes obvious, which is a much better use of the same hour.

How sessions work

Sessions are one-to-one. Online sessions run over Zoom with an interactive whiteboard so both of us can write, and in-person sessions are available across Greater Vancouver. You bring your own problem sets, lecture notes and past exams, and we work from those rather than from generic material.

You can also read our subject pages on first-year calculus, first-year physics and linear algebra, which go into the material itself in more detail. We also work with students at SFU and at any other institution.