Science
Physics Tutoring
Who this is for
High-school physics students, AP Physics students, and college students in the introductory sequence — including engineering majors for whom Physics I is a prerequisite bottleneck.
Courses I tutor: High School Physics · AP Physics 1 · AP Physics 2 · AP Physics C: Mechanics · College Physics I · College Physics II
Everything through AP is Foundational:
Foundational tier — $60/hr online, $90/hr in person. Full pricing →
College Physics I and II are Intermediate:
Intermediate tier — $75/hr online, $105/hr in person. Full pricing →
What usually goes wrong
- Formula hunting. Searching a formula sheet for one with the right variables instead of asking what is physically happening. It works until the problem is unfamiliar, which is to say until the exam.
- Vectors and components, where most errors are geometry rather than physics.
- Free-body diagrams — the same skill that decides Statics, first encountered here.
- Choosing an approach: forces, energy, or momentum. Many problems are tractable by one and miserable by another, and picking well is the actual skill.
- The calculus in calculus-based physics, when the math course is running behind the physics course.
- Circuits and fields in Physics II, where nothing is visible and intuition has to be built deliberately.
Topics covered
Mechanics — kinematics in one and two dimensions, projectile motion, Newton's laws, friction, circular motion, work and energy, momentum and collisions, rotational kinematics and dynamics, torque, angular momentum, static equilibrium, gravitation, and oscillations.
Fluids, waves, and thermal physics — buoyancy, continuity, Bernoulli, wave motion, sound, temperature and heat transfer, and the laws of thermodynamics as taught in an introductory sequence.
Electricity and magnetism (College Physics II) — Coulomb's law, electric fields and potential, capacitance, DC circuits, magnetic fields and forces, induction, and an introduction to AC circuits.
AP Physics C: Mechanics — the calculus-based mechanics sequence, including the derivative and integral treatments of kinematics, work, and rotation.
How I teach physics
Describe the situation before writing anything. What is moving, what is touching what, what is conserved. Nearly every "I do not know where to start" resolves here.
Diagram first, formula second. A free-body diagram or an energy bar chart eliminates most of the formula sheet before the choice is even made.
We pick the tool on purpose. Forces, energy, or momentum — with a reason. Recognizing that a collision problem is a momentum problem is worth more than any single equation.
Symbols before numbers. Solving algebraically and substituting last makes errors visible, keeps units checkable, and shows what the answer actually depends on.
Units and magnitude checks every time. A 400 m/s bicycle is a caught error.
Who this is not a fit for
- Upper-division physics: quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, or electrodynamics beyond the introductory sequence.
- Physics research or graduate coursework.
- Lab report writing as a deliverable. I will help you understand the analysis; the submitted work has to be yours.
- Anyone wanting answers rather than method.
Common questions
Which AP physics courses do you cover?
AP Physics 1, AP Physics 2, and AP Physics C: Mechanics. All three are the Foundational rate.
Is AP Physics C: Electricity & Magnetism included?
No. I tutor AP Physics C: Mechanics specifically, and I would rather name that boundary here than let you find it later. If your course is the E&M half, I am not the right tutor for it. College Physics II covers E&M for students in the college sequence.
My physics course uses calculus I have not learned yet. Can you handle both?
Yes — calculus is a subject I tutor, so we can address the math gap inside the physics work rather than sending you elsewhere.
I am an engineering student. Does this connect to Statics?
Directly. Physics mechanics is where the free-body diagram habit is built, and Statics is where it becomes the whole course.
Does physics work online?
Yes. It is a diagram-and-derivation subject, and you keep the recording and the whiteboard PDF.
Related subjects
- Calculus →When the math course is running behind the physics course, this is usually the actual problem.
- Statics →Where the free-body diagram stops being one step of a problem and becomes the whole course.
- Mechanical engineering →What introductory physics is a prerequisite for, if you are heading into engineering.
- Chemistry →The other first-year lab science, and usually the other requirement on the same transcript.
Is the trouble the physics or the math?
Often it is the math, and that changes what we work on. Send the course and the textbook and I will tell you which one I think it is.
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