Brandon is a serial entrepreneur in the education industry. He primarily helps students who are preparing for competitive exams such as SAT and ACT. A father of two, Brandon is an avid blogger and writer.

I’m Brandon, and I teach standardized tests. Goodness, that sounds soulless. Let me back up a little.

I love, love, love learning. I’m obsessively curious, and addicted to reading — as I write this, I’m neck deep in books about Buddhism, happiness, the psychology of rationality, cultural evolution, and the history of the Universe. I don’t consider it a good day unless I’ve jotted down at least one life-changing idea.

For someone as ADHD-esque as I am, I’ve done pretty well in school. I studied my butt off for my own SAT in high school, and got  10 points shy of a perfect score — a 1590 out of 1600. I got a National Merit Scholarship, and graduated summa cum laude from the Barrett Honors College at Arizona State with B.A.s in Religious Studies and History. I then got an M.Ed. in Social and Cultural Foundations of Education from the University of Washington.

But I only rarely felt like school scratched my itch for meaning and enjoyment. So often, school was boring. And traditional test-prep, I realized, was even worse: an info-dump that was equal parts soul-sucking tedium and pain.

Wouldn’t it be better, I thought, if there could be a better way to do test prep? A way of studying for the SAT (and ACT) that actually took seriously the fact that all students crave purpose and enjoy the feeling of really getting something?

So: that’s what I do now: I’m re-booting test-prep. At least, I’m doing this when I’m not leading Socratic seminars on moral economics, world religions, philosophy, or happiness. Or opening a new kind of K–12 school on the East Side.

Oh, and I’m also married, and have two (fairly delightful) kids. I’m from Wisconsin (I love Wisconsin.)

Why Brandon?
Brandon brings unique value proposition to the techidesi community. Lot of techidesis have young kids who are going to middle school and high school and need guidance and wisdom from someone like Brandon. A fascinating fact about Brandon is that he helps many desi kids with SAT and ACT preparation. In the process, he has also picked up what works and what does not work for desi kids. It’s going to be very interesting discussion.