here’s some exciting team news: our vocabulary builder app was recently featured on tutorful as part of their roundup of 2018’s hottest revision tools. pretty sweet!

check out their full list!

if you don’t already know, vocabulary builder is the one of magoosh’s many great apps for android and ios. it’s a fun (and super addicting way) to learn difficult new vocab from a list of 1,200 words picked by chris lele, our gre and sat expert.

there are two ways you can play. you can level up as you master and unlock harder words, or you can challenge another player to see which of you knows the most definitions.

learn more about the app and then give it a try! we’d love to hear what you think!

also, thanks tutorful! you totally made our day!
 
 

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hack days provide sweet opportunities to try something new, and in the spirit of communication > efficiency and learning > knowing (two of magoosh’s core values), i want to share how our company organizes fun, impactful hack days and showcases some awesome hacks created by people from all over magoosh (not just the engineering team).

set-up

magoosh hack days last two days, usually on a thursday and friday. our product director, melanie oei, starts by sending out an announcement a couple of weeks in advance to let everyone know we have hack days coming up. some key points from this announcement:

1. pick projects that you believe will have positive impact on magoosh. they don’t need to relate your department or a currently scoped project.
2. you can’t force other people to work with you, so if you’d like other people to help you, get creative. try to make trades (e.g. one of our former engineers, zach, worked on a zendesk widget in exchange for our director of student help, kevin rocci, to dress up in costume).
3. check the asana hack days project for ideas that others have added to the backlog over time for inspiration, and claim your idea once you’re set so that people can know what you’re working on.
4. feel free to skip out on hack days. it’s completely optional. you can work on regular work instead.

even though this event is designed to be fun, there is a lot of care taken in communicating the timeline, inspiration, and resources available so that every magoosher can take advantage of hack days.

the hacking + demos

once hack days arrives, we have a 15-minute kickoff meeting for people to share what they’re working on, and that gives way to more collaboration opportunities. as each person announces his or her project, everyone oohs and aahs for ideas that they like or laughs for sillier ones. then we’re off! hacking happens during the normal work day and there’s no pressure to keep working into the night like some of the hackathons i participated in while in college. we get lunch catered on both days so that it’s easier to stay focused during the work sprint. at the end of the two days, we go around and present what we worked on, and everyone is encouraged to present even if they didn’t finish what they set out to do. listening to hack days demos is a great chance to see some cool projects and to feel how supportive magooshers are to each other.

feedback

after we finish hack days, melanie collects feedback from everyone and shares the results with the company (feedback is a big part of magoosh’s culture). in the context of hack days, the feedback and metrics we track tell us when to do another hack days and how to make hack days better. for example, we know from collecting feedback that an average of 60-70% magooshers participate during each hack days. most people enjoy it and find this time spent to be impactful, but surveys also tell us that satisfaction depends largely on when in the quarter hack days are scheduled, how much encouragement there is from management to participate, as well as how formal of a collaboration process exists during the hacking. based on this data, we can work to improve our hack days each time they happen and optimize for maximum team enjoyment and participation.

some of my favorite hacks

i’ve been working at magoosh for about a year and a half, and during that time the company has hosted four hackathons. it’s especially cool when the projects we work on during hack days actually end up being prioritized later on. for example, melanie brought in an amazon echo and joked about how it’d be cool if magoosh made a skill for it. i thought that was actually an awesome idea, so during one hack days, i created an adaptation of our most popular mobile apps in the form of an alexa skill: magoosh vocabulary builder. the hack took me one hack days to prototype, and then another 2-3 days to finish enough to submit to the amazon store for certification. i enjoyed mashing existing magoosh content with amazon’s new voice api and working with melanie to scope features down into a usable skill. on the way, i learned about the magoosh vocabulary api, amazon’s lambda functions, and used node.js in production for the first time.

to my surprise, the alexa skill quickly became one of the amazon store’s most popular trivia skills, with 12,000 weekly active users and a 4-star rating over 100+ reviews. and because of that, we’re now prioritizing the creation of more skills. it’s a lot of fun for me to explore this new technology and it’s great to apply the coding standards and strategies we have in other parts of our codebase to new projects.

here are some more of my favorite products and features that have come out of magoosh hack days:

magoosh vocabulary chrome extension

this hack, created by zack mayeda (engineering), puts a random gre vocabulary word on every new tab you open in the chrome browser along with a definition and sample sentence. you can even click on the play button to hear a sample pronunciation of the word. so far, almost 30,000 students have downloaded the extension.

my cat is studying for the gre

this hack was made by rachel wisuri and lena brooks (marketing) and was inspired by the goal of making the cutest magoosh video of all time. i think they succeeded. you can take a look for yourself and let me know.

highbrow: most influential business school case studies

peter poer(content and operations) compiled a list of business school case studies and published them as a series of lessons on the highbrow email course platform. over 5,000 students have signed up for this 10-day course.

latex editor

aria (a former engineer) added latex formatting capability to our admin interface so that we no longer have to upload images to make math formulas look nice. mike mcgarry, our beloved gmat curriculum manager, was especially ecstatic about this hack.

in conclusion…

of course, our hack days process hasn’t always been as polished as it is now. i’ve heard that hack days has evolved a lot over time — it used to only span one day (which means we didn’t have as much time to experiment), did not have lunch catered (so the event felt more like a normal work day), and didn’t start with any brainstorming process. we’ve now implemented all these parts and even have fun side-events during the hackathon like guess-the-baby-picture and music playlist swapping. if you’re looking to implement a regular hackathon-type event at your workplace, the key to making it better is to just start with something and then get feedback!

i’m grateful that magoosh hack days have expanded my skills as an engineer. i’ve taken these opportunities to exercise fast prototyping and work with people in different departments. for example, during our next hack days, i’m planning to team up with our data scientist, sam ju, and our in-house vocabulary wizard, chris lele to build out a new mobile app game.

i also appreciate how these events have bolstered our team’s culture. when we regularly celebrate experimentation and innovation, good things happen: i become more receptive to receiving and processing criticism on my work, everybody’s fun ideas turn into valuable investments, and our students ultimately gain access to a better studying experience.

interested in working at magoosh? check out our open positions.

if you don’t see an open position that’s perfect for you, please submit your resume via the general application.

learn more about our philosophy and culture here.

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we think we’ve stopped the attack, but we’re continuing the monitor. the site should be working for most students and we’ll continue looking into the issues.

july 24, 9:15am pdt

unfortunately, we’re still experiencing issues and intermittent down time. it looks like someone is flooding our servers with “fake” traffic, also known as a dos attack. our team and partners are trying to determine how to stop the attack.

july 22, 12:00pm pdt

we had an unexpected outage today, and i’m truly sorry. we know how important your studies are and that many of you have upcoming tests or blocked off time today to study, and we let you down. we don’t have all the details, and we’re not 100% sure we’re in the clear, but i wanted to share a little bit about what happened.

first, here’s the timeline (all times pacific daylight time on saturday, july 22nd):

• 2:00am: our site became slow
• 5:30am: the site was entirely down
• 6:30am: the site was back up but very slow again and intermittently down
• 11:00am: the site was back up

we host our servers with amazon via amazon web services. we also use a company in australia to help us work with amazon. they monitor our servers and try to make sure everything’s running smoothly.

so what happened?

there was a problem with the server our database is on. our database is where we store all of your information, such as which questions you’ve answered, when your account expires, etc. every time you submit an answer, flip a flashcard, or take any other action on our site, we store that in our database so we can keep track of your progress and provide that information back to you. the database server had connectivity issues which ultimately impacted your ability to use the site. we have automated backups that should kick in when something like this happens, but unfortunately they didn’t work either. we don’t exactly know why the issue happened and why the backups didn’t work yet, but we’re looking into it.

our engineering team and our partners in australia decided the best course of action would be to completely replace our database and database server. this meant we’d need to take the site down entirely for about 15 minutes while we set up the new server and copied over the new database. we took this action around 10:45am and the site was back up by 11am.

ideally, the site would have never gone down, or if it did, we’d have identified the solution earlier. we’ll look into why this happened and see how we can prevent it in the future. i’m truly sorry for disrupting your studies, and if you want to share your thoughts or need a little extra time on your account or need anything else, let us know by emailing help@www.catharsisit.com.

thanks,
bhavin
ceo, magoosh

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step one: you rule!

if you’re reading this right now and you’re not feeling like your awesome self, take a second to pause and put on your favorite feel-good song. write down a list of things that you’re good at and then come back to this article. that will put you in a much better position to successfully execute the following four steps! if you’re really stuck, think of your accomplishments at previous jobs or in school, challenges you overcame or compliments you’ve received.

remember, you have a unique perspective and set of experiences. now it’s time to put them to work!

step two: prioritize your new list of prospective jobs and tailor your application to each one

so you’ve written down your list and you’re ready to show every company in the world that they would be crazy not to hire you? well, okay, applying to every company in the world is not exactly realistic. you’ll have to focus on only a handful. but, which ones? how do you choose? use a table to organize your thoughts around this. here’s an example:

once you’ve created a list of companies you like, see if they have any openings for positions that interest you. even if they don’t, reach out to the recruiter and fill out an application to join their general applicant pool. make sure to let them know that you are interested in becoming an x at their company and tell them why (be specific!). and if they do have an open position that interests you, it’s time for the next step — the application!

step three: apply!

your application won’t be stellar unless you tailor it to each role you’re applying to. this can seem overwhelming (“i have to write how many different cover letters?!”), but there are steps you can take to make it easier on yourself. first, organize your list of prospective jobs and companies. make it so that the position you’re most interested in is at the top, and the one that’s more of a “backup plan” is at the bottom. then, work your way down the list, tailoring your application to each position as you go. start with the opportunity at the top of your list. write a unique cover letter for the position and edit your resume so that it showcases your most relevant experiences. if you are applying to similar roles elsewhere, you may be able to reuse that version of your resume or even parts of the cover letter. once you’ve drafted up your application, use the infographic below to test your draft. if you tell your story well, recruiters will be more likely to advance you to the next round.

step four: communicate and follow up

after you’ve applied, you’re done right? wrong! give the organization or company some time (about a week). if they don’t get back to you in that time, send them a kind and enthusiastic email asking when you should expect to hear back. if you get an email passing you to the next round, congrats!

reality check: sometimes you get rejected. rejection is disappointing, but remember it’s also an opportunity to learn and improve your application for the next position that opens up. don’t be afraid to ask for feedback! while recruiters generally have limited time and may not send you a response or feedback, it never hurts to ask.

pro tip: if you are seriously discouraged by your most recent endeavors to search for a job, consider creating a “pride folder.” a “pride folder” is a place where you store up little and big things that have made you proud of yourself so that you can return to it when you are feeling down. as an example, you may hold on to test you scored really well on, a note from a student, an email from a coworker, etc. this is a totally made up practice, but it can help remind you of your accomplishments so that you have the confidence you need during a job search.

about meghan stanger:

<img class="" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 5px;" src=meghan is the recruiter for magoosh. she works to find awesome people to join our team while supporting all applicants along the way. a graduate of tulane university with a ba in international development and english, meghan has worked toward providing equal access to excellent education for students both in and out of the classroom. she loves exploring the coast and its many amazing surf spots, going on (hopefully successful) camping trips, and planning elaborate april fool’s day pranks.

image at top courtesy of shutterstock.com / npfire

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update: we’re finalists! in the category of “best employer: education”

the work local awards shines a spotlight on the boutiques, cafes, nonprofits, startups, and all the local employers that make our communities thrive. we were beyond excited to hear that magoosh was nominated in these four awesome award categories (we definitely agree that we have the best co-workers who make it the most fun place to work!), and that we’re being recognized alongside such an amazing group of employers in our community!

the awards are presented by localwise—the local job community in the bay area—in partnership with the federal reserve bank of san francisco, kiva zip, and more. localwise is a mission-driven organization focused on helping local businesses hire great local people.

if you live in the bay area and would like to join the fun, be sure to rsvp for the celebration event on april 28th. and keep your fingers crossed for the award results.

the post we’ve been nominated for four 2016 work local awards! appeared first on magoosh 2022年足球世界杯举办地.

how do you handle this ambiguity and lack of control? as a manager, how do you keep yourself from jumping in and answering tickets when more and more tickets flow into the queue?

at magoosh, we face this challenge — all the people and no control over when they work — but with any good challenge, a creative solution is waiting to be unearthed. instead of looking for a solution among other customer support teams, we adapted an idea popularized by uber and lyft: surge pricing!

over the past year, we experimented with increasing pay when we were inundated with questions as a way to nudge our test prep experts to jump in and answer questions. i’d like to share the results of this experiment with you. i hope you can learn from our experience. maybe it will inspire you to try something similar with your teams.

the background

“wait, kevin, why don’t you have control over when your agents work?” you might ask. “can’t you easily avoid this challenge?”

yes, we could avoid this scenario. we could hire a full-time staff, or even a larger part-time staff, and schedule their time to handle ticket levels. but that’s not how we’ve approached support at magoosh up to this point.

we hire teachers and tutors with expertise across multiple tests as independent contractors. our “customer support agents” work independently to answer questions about exams: from coordinate geometry on the gre, to critical reasoning on the gmat, to dual reading passages on the sat, to speaking strategies on the toefl. the people with this type of expertise tend to be phd students, classroom teachers, private tutors, or recent graduates, all of whom have fluctuating and dynamic schedules.

as independent contractors, they set their own schedules, finding time to answer questions in between their other commitments. this flexibility is great for them. they don’t have to tell us when they will work or notify us of changes — they just work when they can.

this is great for us too. we don’t have to keep a schedule or approve schedule changes. no one has to worry about shifts or coverage in the traditional sense. all our hires are experts and already know how to teach. we can hire the best people from across the country.

but it’s not all sugar plums and gumdrops. we’ve traded control for uncertainty, and as such, we’re left to experiment and find solutions to certain challenges — will all the questions get answered today?

hypothesis

surge pricing works for companies like uber and lyft, so we wanted to find out if we could make it work in customer support.

the process was straightforward enough: email everyone on the team at the beginning of the day and tell them that they’ll be paid 25% more for any work they do during a specific time period.

when we see that our demand (tickets) is rising and our supply (people who can answer questions) is decreasing, we’d send out an email to the team. a situation similar to this contrived example.

if surge pay worked, we’d see this happen:

our supply rushes to meet demand and our students begin to receive answers to their questions. demand begins to drop off as our tutors answer questions, and the incentive of surge pay is no longer needed.

how it worked

when we “turned on” surge pay, we sent an email to our team, letting them know that surge pay is in effect for a certain amount of time, usually the rest of the day.

here’s an example of an email sent to the team:

since june 2015, we’ve had surge pay 26 times. each of these surge pay experiments was different, but not by design. sometimes they were for a full day, sometimes they were across multiple days, and sometimes they would only last an afternoon.

this variation was not for pure experimental purposes. due to consistent high demand across multiple days, we’d have surge pay across multiple days. or sometimes we waited to see what the morning would be like, to see if people would jump in and answer questions, and then later, send out the surge pay email. other times we’d check the queue in the morning and know that we needed to flip the switch.

results

the graphs below show nearly all the surge pay days in 2015. each vertical line represents the day before surge pay. i’ve decided to mark these days because it gives a better picture of what we were looking at when we decided to start surge pay. to understand the results of surge pay, we need to look at what happened the day after the line.

let’s look at some of these days to evaluate the success of surge pay. on 6/23/2015, we had roughly 280 tickets created — our demand — but only around 200 tickets updated — our supply. on 6/24/2015, i emailed the team to begin surge pay, and by the end of the day, supply surged to around 300 tickets. in this case, we can tentatively say that surge pay worked. the steep increase in tickets updated from 6/23 to 6/24 would indicated that we were able to encourage people to jump in and answer questions.

now let’s look at another day. on 6/25/2015, demand was only slightly above our supply. on 6/26, i sent out the email to start surge pay, and both supply and demand dropped off with supply never overtaking demand. surge pay didn’t seem to change anything this time.

in august we saw more mixed results. for the first time, we had back-to-back surge pay days. if we look at 8/10 – 8/12, we see a big spike at the beginning, but then a drop off in our supply and demand. ticket updates dropped below new tickets created. this might indicate that surge pay is only effective in short bursts. perhaps after the third day of surge pay, the team was less motivated to jump in.

this brings up some points that we need to consider when looking at the results of surge pay. we can’t conclusively say that surge pay worked or not. at this stage, we can only have hunches and draw tentative conclusions because there is already so much variation in how much people work. there’s no way to know if surge pay influenced people to work or if those people already planned to work. take, for example, the steep increases in ticket updates on days without surge pay (6/15, 6/21, 6/27, 8/30, 9/8, 9/24, 9/26, and 9/27). when we look at a surge pay day, it’s hard to know for sure if this increase is similar to one of these days or due to an increase in pay. finally, we are implementing surge pay on days where demand is high. supply might naturally surge during these periods without us doing anything. ideally, we would a/b test surge pay and no surge pay at the same time, but that’s not fair to our test prep experts nor our students waiting for answers.

september offers us mixed results with surge pay. let’s look at the dates 9/9 – 9/13. on 9/9 there was definitely a gap in supply and demand before we sent out the email about surge pay. by the next day, supply overtook demand as we would expect.

over the next 3 days, both supply and demand fell, but supply stayed above demand, until 9/12 when supply dropped below demand again. it’s unclear why this happened. maybe the effects of surge pay are not effective over a long period of time. but if we look at the last day of surge pay (9/13) we see a spike in both supply and demand. during this time, supply does overtake demand.

what’s interesting is that we see a similar pattern when we look at the string of surge pays days later on from 9/17 – 9/20. supply overtakes demand, both drop off in the coming days, supply drops below demand towards the end, and on the final day, it surges. this is a fascinating pattern and we don’t have a good explanation to explain it.

learnings

at this point, we are not ready to draw any strong conclusions about surge pay. as you can see from the results, there are a lot of variables. the natural fluctuations in people working and ticket numbers makes it hard to draw clear correlations with surge pay.

even so, the preliminary results are positive enough for us to keep trying it. from the perspective of handling a backlog of tickets, surge pay has helped. it does bring down ticket numbers on days of high tickets. we are also expanding our definition of surge pay. it doesn’t have to be based on a percent increase in pay. we are now experimenting with rewards around number of tickets answered in a week, number of hours worked in a week, and first to answer 10 questions.

photo attributions:

1 – photo of uber app courtesy of gongto / shutterstock.com.

the post the uber of customer support appeared first on magoosh 2022年足球世界杯举办地.

how do i enter?

1. take a picture of you studying in your favorite study spot (see the picture above for inspiration—we went to the uc berkeley campus!).

2. post the picture on your twitter, facebook, and/or instagram.

3. use the hashtag #wheredoyoumagoosh and tag us in the picture (@magoosh for twitter and facebook, @magooshers for instagram).

tagging us is the most important part! otherwise, we won’t be able to find your post!

we will be choosing 3 winning photos total

one winner for each of the following categories:

funniest

most creative

most magooshy
(show off your magoosh pride with any swag you have!)

we’ll be hearting and liking all of your posts, and passing them around the magoosh office to decide on the winners!

make sure you post your picture before monday, march 21st, 2016 at 12:00 pm pacific standard time (pst) to be eligible.

finally, don’t forget to spread the word! retweet our tweet! share our facebook post! repost our instagram post! wherever you heard about the contest, post it on your own social media.

we can’t wait to see where you magoosh!

faq

we know what you’re thinking…

what if i don’t use magoosh?
that’s okay! this is for anyone who studies! you don’t even need to be studying for a standardized test (e.g. act, sat, gre, gmat, lsat, etc).

what if i don’t have a twitter, facebook, or instagram?
unfortunately, you need at least one of these social media accounts to participate in the contest. but don’t worry! we may throw more contests like this in the future that you can enter.

what if my twitter, facebook, or instagram account is private?
you’ll need to set your account to “public” so that we are notified when you tag us.

what is the prize exactly? where can i use it?
each winner will receive a $100 visa prepaid card. once we decide you’re a winner, we’ll contact you through social media (check your messages!) so we can email you the prize.

in the email, you’ll receive a promo code. you’ll have 6 months to redeem the code for a visa virtual account. when the code has been applied to your account, you will have 1 year to use the value wherever visa debit is accepted online or over the phone. or, you can request that the value be put on a physical card, which will be mailed to you (this option requires a fee in the u.s. and some countries, and is not available at all for students in india).

if you do not live in the u.s., we can work out these details when we email you. for example, in india, the visa card will default to a mastercard, and any purchase not in usd may result in a conversion fee. we’ll help with that—we want your prize to work for you, regardless of where you live.

can i win for 2 categories? like, for funniest and most creative?
unfortunately, no. for the sake of giving everyone an equal chance, we’ll choose exactly one winner for each category!

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college was an eye-opening experience for me, specifically because there was such an array of extracurricular activities available to me. i went to a smaller college, but its size was no indication of the number of opportunities students could participate in outside of the classroom. i jumped into research and clubs, and even got involved in student government for a while. through my activities, i saw firsthand how difficult it was for students to manage everything on their plates. while the academic skills i’d developed in high school helped me navigate college waters, i could definitely relate when friends and classmates felt stressed and behind on work. after all, i’d felt the same way at times throughout my high school career, and even felt similarly during difficult moments in college. as an upperclassman, i volunteered my time to mentor students through challenging classes and help my peers strike a better school/life balance. this was a great way for me to share my study skills with others and “pay it forward” to better my school community. i’m really looking forward to passing what’s worked for me and my classmates onto all of you through magoosh!

all of the topics that i write about are ones that i think will benefit you. the magoosh team and i are here to serve each of you the best that we can, so if there’s ever a topic you don’t see me addressing but want me to cover, please leave a note in the comments!

about the author:

catherine supports magoosh’s future grad school students by unlocking tricks of the test prep and application trade. catherine spends her free time checking out local farmer’s markets, reading food and lifestyle blogs, and watching bravo. she is forever in search of the best mexican and italian food in any given city.

the post i’m catherine, a new magoosh blogger! appeared first on magoosh 2022年足球世界杯举办地.

this month we are highlighting one of the reasons students are so happy with magoosh: our test prep experts. our test prep experts are an amazing group of educators, on the front lines of helping magoosh students succeed on test day. the message above is emblematic of what they do everyday.

test prep experts help magoosh students. anytime a 30-60-90 triangle is hard to visualize inside a circle, or the word telling doesn’t seem to fit with the meaning of a sentence, or the difference between an integer and number is unclear, or the author’s opinion is neutral and not critical, or a student doesn’t know how to spend the next month studying, or it’s the last week before the test, magoosh test prep experts are there to help.

students can send their questions to help@www.catharsisit.com or click on the “help” tab when they’re logged in and one of our test prep experts will respond in less than 24 hours (usually less than that) with a detailed and personal answer. they diagnose student issues and respond with empathy and encouragement, putting students on the path to success.

everyday, i see messages like the one above. students return to emails from our test prep experts because they are so detailed and useful. our test prep experts answer hundreds of questions each week so that students can improve. in the end, students show up to the test with more knowledge and more confidence than they had before.

magoosh’s success is due, in no small part, to the wonderfully talented teachers who notice the particular nuances of each question from each student. for that, magoosh test prep experts stay blessed and stay happy! i hope you achieve whatever you desire in life.

the post student happiness report — december 2015 appeared first on magoosh 2022年足球世界杯举办地.

sometimes you’ve read the explanation, watched all the videos, perused the blogs, and something is still just not making sense. enter our team of pros! when you click the help tab and explain what you’re struggling with, they are the ones who get back to you with exactly the insightful, in-depth answer you were looking for.

while all of the test prep experts are absolute ninja masters of standardized tests, their backgrounds and interests are as varied as a box of see’s candies. since all their great personality and talent tends to be hidden behind that small green tab, i convinced a few of them to give us a little insight into their lives. here’s what they had to say.

how do you start your mornings?
i have a goal of starting my days with a half-hour of deep meditation, but for now my days start with a glass of water, an aeropress, and a really strong americano.

what is your spirit animal (with accessory)?
an okapi with an awesome multi-color designer beanie.

what do you do outside of magoosh?
at the moment i’m learning as much as i can about photography! and i also teach recreational freediving courses.

what’s the most surprising message you have ever received from a magoosh student?
a student wrote to me asking about how the us presidential election works. unfortunately i had to explain to him that our area of expertise is test prep!

what is your spirit animal (with accessory)?
i’m currently really fond of the bush viper. it has amazing colors and texture. if that’s me, i would definitely need it to be drinking tea and listening to a podcast.

what’s the most surprising message you have ever received from a magoosh student?
once, i explained a math concept that was really causing trouble for a student and (jokingly!) got a marriage proposal in thanks for my help.

what do you do outside of magoosh?
i play jazz (saxophone)! i also like to read, go rock climbing, and play pool in my spare time.

how do you start your mornings?
with coffee. obligatorily.

what’s your favorite meal?
something new mexican (with green chiles!), new york pizza, or greek food.

as a student, what was your most challenging test prep experience?
i had fortunately found magoosh and was using it to study for the gre. none of my habits conformed to good test taking practices, so the biggest challenge was actually trying to impose structure on myself.

who inspires you and how/why?
christopher hitchens. he possessed great wit and personal integrity. i aspire to that sort of creative and ethical life…and to being a shark [which answers the spirit animal question!].

what do you do outside of magoosh?
i work as a research assistant at the boston redevelopment authority. i do lots of statistics on boston’s demographics and economy. magoosh students should know that people really do use “gre/gmat math” outside of the tests!

how do you start your mornings?
with magoosh! seriously. i’m a “morning person” anyway, but answering students’ gre and gmat questions first thing in the morning really helps get my brain juices flowing for the day. i think i provide better answers in the morning than in the evening.

as a student, what was your most challenging test prep experience?
taking the exam to earn my mastery level diploma of spanish as a foreign language. because i was studying by myself, i wasn’t sure which prep books to use, how long to study, or exactly what level of vocabulary i needed, so i had to come up with my own study plan.

what do you do outside of magoosh?
i am studying at the theater school la lavandería in madrid, spain.

who inspires you and how/why?
my biggest inspiration has to be rafael nadal. he has faced a handful of potentially career-ending injuries, but he’s always come back as a stronger tennis player because of his passion, determination, and resiliency!

what is your spirit animal (with accessory)?
meerkat with gandalf’s staff.

as a student, what was your most challenging test prep experience?
preparing for the antonym section of the old gre. i had a huge piece of butcher paper plastered to my bedroom wall, covered with synonym and antonym “clusters.” all of the words were color-coded to represent graduated degrees of positive, negative, or neutral connotations. i used bubbles, symbols, and scribbles to link hundreds of words together on this poster. my bedroom wall looked like the delirious work of a mad scientist!

what do you do outside of magoosh?
currently i’m in between standardized tests; this is my first year in law school.

what does no one ever ask you, but you always wish you could tell?
the etymology of the word “cummerbund.” it comes from farsi/hindi (“kamarband”), and it literally means a band for wrapping around the waist.

what is your spirit animal (with accessory)?
baby gargoyle. so far it’s refused accessories.

what’s the most surprising message you have ever received from a magoosh student?
i once had a student ask me for advice on how she could maintain good study habits, even while she was recovering from surgery. it helped me realize how important wellness is in test prep.

what does no one ever ask you, but you always wish you could tell?
i wish more people would ask me about my favorite animated cartoons from my childhood. i love talking about those!

what’s the most surprising message you have ever received from a magoosh student?
a question about the categorical distinctions between methods and methodology. i was surprised by how fluent the student was in philosophy.

what’s your favorite meal?
it’s hard to choose one favorite meal, but i think i would say cold soba or warm udon.

as a student, what was your most challenging test prep experience?
studying for a test i wasn’t sure i’d even use (the gmat).  i wasn’t sure if i wanted to go to business school but i thought i should take the test to see what realistic potential options were.

what is your spirit animal (with accessory)?
a piglet with racing goggles.

what do you do outside of magoosh?
when i’m not working for magoosh, i’m usually thinking about philosophy or riding my bike (or both!). i’m writing my dissertation in the history of philosophy at uc riverside.

what does no one ever ask you but you always wish you could tell?
for some strange reason, nobody ever seems to ask me how many species of north american birds i’ve seen in a calendar year. (my personal record is 501).

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