Hi! I'm Nathan!
I’m an educator with a background in the liberal arts and humanities, teen mentorship and wilderness education. A great deal of my life is devoted to great books, which I read 1:1 with teenagers and as a seminar lead for The Catherine Project. . I also guide young people on leadership development programs with UWC Atlantic College . on the coast of Wales and with Back to Earth in the Sierra Nevada mountains. As an undergraduate I attended Deep Springs College, where I studied philosophy and political theory, and worked both on the college ranch and as an admissions committee member. I finished my BA in English at Columbia and recently earned an MPhil at Cambridge on the Gould Studentship at Trinity College. My academic work has dealt with time and human inwardness in the epic poetry of John Milton and the literature of democracies.
My goals as an educator are:
- Offer young people experiences of responsibility and challenge
- Teach the art of writing, composition and conversation.
- Promote cognitive autonomy and traditional literacy in the age of AI
- Help students build intellectual and moral confidence
Tutoring in the arts and humanities
I work with middle and high-school students who want to build confidence in their reading and writing abilities. Whether you want a stronger command over what you write, or simply want to get more from what you read, my goal is to help you develop and trust in your voice, observations, and instincts.
My approach is twofold: first, to train basic (but deceptively simple) skills — how to tighten sentences, organize a paragraph, and how to read and take stock of what you have read. Second, and perhaps more importantly, my goal is conversation: to engage seriously with a student's insights, serving as a mirror for their analytical process, and posing the questions that can strengthen it. I'm also excited to work with students who are interested in approaching more complex reading — in anything from literature or poetry to philosophy and political theory — by progressing through a given text with them and discussing regularly.
You can get in touch with me to schedule an introductory meeting at nathan[at]deepsprings.edu or +1 707-295-7547.
College Essay Mentorship
In addition to academic tutoring, I work with students who are writing (or preparing to write) their college essays. My goal is to help students take ownership of the application-writing process, as an opportunity to authentically articulate themselves and refine their thinking. Rather than a hassle of self-fashioning, I think the application writing process can be deeply rewarding, generative, and clarifying. What actually motivates me? Where do my curiosities actually point?
With experience working in highly-selective college admissions and mentoring teenagers at pivotal rite-of-passage moments, I hope to help students put a confident foot forward in their applications, and learn something about themselves in the process.
Some resources I like to use:
Hack the College Essay by John Dewis
The Deep Springs Writing Handbook by David Arndt
