Tutor Spotlight: Charity Pihlaja

Charity Pihlaja is a new tutor at the University Writing Center. She began tutoring in August of 2018. She is married with two children in elementary school. Charity was a double major in college, studying Journalism and English. Before becoming a tutor, she worked as a journalist for a business newspaper in Arizona and later at a publishing company for a trade company in Chicago. When asked why she wanted to become a tutor, she said her dad had a big influence on her growing up and she wanted to help students the way he helped her: “My dad was an English teacher, and he was that guy who wouldn’t just tell me my paper was wrong. He would sit me down and explain to me the basic structure of English grammar.” Charity also said that because of her work as a journalist and as a publisher, “I’m really good at catching small things.” She has carried her past passion of learning to her tutoring style. She says that she loves tutoring because: “I like that no two tutoring sessions are the same. Everyone comes in with their own ideas.” She added, “It is a lot of fun to delve into that with them to help them bring out a stronger paper that they are confident in or reassure them that the things they have put in are good and that they should be confident in the skills they do have.”

Charity is not just passionate about tutoring; she is also an avid traveller. She has been to 6 countries and hopes to visit many more. She lived in India for a year and spent time travelling to Mexico, Nepal, England, Sri Lanka, and Singapore. Charity has also travelled around the US and lived in several different states, including Chicago, Illinois and Tucson, Arizona.

Lastly, when asked: “If you could be any character from fiction, who would you be and why?” Charity responded: “It would be a toss up between some generic young adult person with power because I really want to make fire, or be someone from a Jane Austen Book, like Lizzie Bennet who can just read all day and do what she wants and not be expected to cook or clean all day.”