3,458.

Three thousand, four hundred and fifty eight.

That is the number of questions Parth Kohli has answered on OpenStudy… in 59 days. That is dedication, both to the art of teaching and to learning. With 372 fans on the site, it is estimated that he has helped at least 500 people. When was the last time you managed to help 500 people without ever leaving the comfort of your own home? The real kicker behind this story is that Parth is in middle school, the youngest person ever to reach a SmartScore of 99. Ever. Not only that, he managed this feat in only 38 days, a little more than a month.

According to Parth, “OpenStudy has given me the perfect chance to be great at math.” For Parth, however, ‘great’ is a bit of an understatement. He has received 2,765 medals for his efforts helping others in that group.

Parth has helped countless others from all around the world, some much older than he is. How has he managed to reach this milestone of a 99 SmartScore?Parth humbly answers, “[by] answering questions, asking them, and having a will to help people.” OpenStudy users obviously appreciate his efforts, as Parth has many glowing testimonials written by his fans.

For example, OpenStudy user apoorvk writes, “[Parth is] one prodigy of a kid – always ready to help people and learn more and more. Rare mix of hunger, hard work, smartness and frolicking attitude.” Igbasallote writes, “his most incredible feat in my opinion is that he accomplished what I have dubbed impossible..he reached 99 smartscore in 38 days!! I am impressed by this feat but I admit that I am interested to see if he can keep this up and become one of the most influential people of OpenStudy.”

Well, when asked what Parth wanted to do in life, he answered, “to be honest, I just want to be influential, and OpenStudy is a great platform to *be* influential.”

Judging by the number of people he has helped, his dedication, and his true desire to teach others, it is clear that he is already a very influential person on OpenStudy with no signs of stopping. It takes a special kind of person to advance the ranks of the SmartScore, which measures Teamwork, Problem Solving and Engagement on the site. With a score of 99, the twelve year old is “a veteran, overflowing with solving experience.”

A self-described “sincere OpenStudy worshipper,” Parth is glad that he discovered the site — and we are too. He says that OpenStudy has “raised my will to help people. It has made me meet these awesome people who have guided me to this place.” rebeccaskell94 writes that “he’s a sweet guy with great aspirations and I know that if he keeps up his hard work and never gives up every single one of his dreams will come true.”

Here at OpenStudy, we agree 100% and wish Parth the very best of luck in following his dreams.

You can follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/iParthKohli

I want to make two points about why I am such  fan of OpenStudy.  I’ve always had a knack for learning. Things just seem to click for me. My friends noticed this as they were always coming to me for help. When I helped them, I discovered that I had another talent, teaching. It’s a great feeling when that lightbulb goes off and when you have helped someone. OpenStudy lets me grow as a teacher, even though I am not a teaching assistant or a tutor at my college.

OpenStudy is such a great community because people who are passionate about teaching are able to interact with people who are passionate about learning. It is also a community which breaks down so many barriers. People from different countries, different backgrounds, and different areas of expertise are able to collaborate in real time. Theoretical physicists and practical engineers, for example, are able to tackle a question in such a manner that the asker is allowed to understand the nitty, gritty equations and basic fundamentals of the problem. At the same time, they are able to gain some insight on how this knowledge can be used in real world situations.

This is the second reason I find OpenStudy uniquely helpful.  All students wonder is what they learn will be used in real life.  I often see questions like, “will I ever use Algebra in the real world?” Now with real practitioners answering questions on the site, it is great because it gives askers something tangible. And when you have something tangible it adds a sense of purpose to a student’s studies. I have never experienced this sort of relevance and context anywhere else.  As you can imagine, for an engineering student like me, the real world is very important.  Here on OpenStudy, we have engineers working in companies who drop in to talk to us students about how they are using what we study in their work.  This is what makes me such a fan of OpenStudy.

Thank you OpenStudy for creating a great community where I can actively pursue my passions of learning and teaching in an unique environment.

- Erik Ashmore

Continuing our series profiling our users’ stories – we are pleased to have Saifoo.Khan’s story! Read on as Saifoo tells how he found us, who he found, and why he stays! We here at OpenStudy love hearing this kind of story – come to OpenStudy and create your own ‘OpenStudy Journey!’

Hello Earthlings.

Meet me, my name is Saif Khan. Im a teen, student from Pakistan currently a student of A-levels (Advanced Levels) from University of Cambridge Board, UK. Who doesn’t have problems with his h/w? The same happened with me when I was preparing for my O-levels Examinations back in May/June 2011.

I and my other friends including Narayain and Asad were trying to solve math problems on a Skype conference call. But we were unable to solve it. Having a hard time, I tried to contact a very good friend of mine known as Google. I posted the question in the search and started to check out the links for solution. And then I had a Golden Moment in my life. I found the world of OpenStudy! ;D

I signed up as I was in hurry and OS had just a one step sign-up, which was pretty nice unlike other sites where we have to do a bunch of steps. Moving along I posted the question, tried to get the solution and got it with explanation. I was very happy and continued with my studies.

After i got free with my exams in mid June, i remembered the site again! I always liked tutoring. I used to tutor my school fellows with their problems of different subjects I was good at. On Openstudy, i got a similar enoviroment for tutoring. Where we have people, having a bunch of problems/confusions they were stuck with. I like discussing on different issues/matters, Math is one of them. 

As I moved along with my vacations, OpenStudy was a part of my daily routine. I used to use it all day long and whenever I had spare time. I told my cousins and friends about this awesome site which I had found and they joined it too. Most were on their vacations so they used this site mostly for tutoring.

Openstudy not only helped in Math but it helped me A LOT in my real life too! In math, I learned a LOT of shortcuts about math problems and learned new ways/methods to solve particular problems. Like most of the people, I too had some silly confusions in my mind which i overcame after discussing with “Super-Cool-Math-Gods” I found only on Openstudy.

Other than math, I met people from around the globe, came to know about their customs, ways of living, how they interact with each other, etc, etc.

Another awesome step which OS Team recently took is, they launched “Openstudy Global Interships.” I am really really happy that I was selected in the first batch of the interns ever launched by OS. This allowed us to get training about social media communication and other stuff which we need in expanding a company/website. I personally think that this training will play a positive role in our upcoming lives. Since this will allow us to get experience about the “office-life” which we will be experiencing after our studies and it will make us aware of the things which we have to keep in mind while working with a firm and being a part of them. Apart from this, this step will encourage other youth to be a part of this program and it will encourage them to take part in such activities.

Speaking about Openstudy in the ending, the person i miss the most is a user name as Polpak. I wish he gets back as soon as possible. Furthermore, i love how the elders/ seniors including satellite, myininaya, turingtest, amistre64, asnaseer, etc etc etc. help me and others. (please i apologize if your name’s not in the list, but i still know that you are awesome and sorry to mention about you . Forgive me!)

They help people by trying making them confusion-free and tension-free about Math, since math is a kind of topic which scares most of the people and give them hard time understanding/solving it so it needs a kind of person which has good sense of tolerance and patience including both the tutor and the student. Teaching a lot of people also helped me to gain such ability.

It has been about 9 months i have been on OS and it was a really great experience for me. It changed my whole life from A to Z, my whole routine is changed due to it, since it’s a part of my life. Finally i would i like to appreciate the countless support which my family did while all this time. I don’t know really know how much to be Thankful to them! On the other hand, i would like to show my appreciation to whole Openstudy Team including Preetha, Chris and others their awesome efforts to give education a new step!!

Final words, I will try my best to stay educated and keep others as well, it’s good for everyone of us.

Thanks! ^_^

“I am a re-entry ‘student’ having left the technical workforce to raise a family.  What I like about OS is the ‘attitude’ of acceptance and affectivity in getting direction on how to solve problems as well as camaraderie in the learning community. I started using it as I was enrolled in a summer NASA Electronic Professional Development Course with Instructor Fran Ruskin and upon completion of that course I asked Professor Ruskin for other e-learning communities to engage in.  At that time I was a stay at home mom wanting to keep my math and science skills up.  I was also lonely and looking for avenues to pave the way so that I could return to the technical scientific community when the time was right. It was Fran Ruskin that suggested I try Open Study; this was in 2010.

Probably the only story I have to share is how incredibly unsure I was unsure to how to use the learning environment originally…but fellow peers were helpful without a blink! What was truly wonderful was that my peer’s acceptance and willingness to help kept me coming back, and each time I came back, I gained greater confidence. I truly do not have a worst moment. My experience has been very positive.

I am now headed to complete the PhD in Computer Engineering that I started long ago.  I want to become a researcher in the world’s scientific community.  I use OpenStudy and I feel accepted. This is important to me.  I look to bring other nontraditional students to the forum as well so that they might also prosper and re-engage in their possibly stalled careers. In particular, I commend the job that the OpenStudy team are doing to both engage the community for development input as well as implement suggestions to continue to make the program more adaptable to the user’s needs.  They are very upbeat…it is always a pleasure to receive news of what the group is up to with OpenStudy. OS is a win-win!”

There you go.  Geri loves programming, C++, and is comfortable around computers and tennis tournaments! This leaves us wondering, HOW DOES SHE DO IT ALL?

Pokemon posted this on our Feedback site and silenced the whole team for a moment for a collective, “Wow, we are doing something right!” moment. Here is Pokemon, in his own words…

“I remember when I first started doing math in elementary school. During the first year of elementary I knew I had a phobia with math. I just couldn’t comprehend math like the other kids could. As second grade approached I was struggling, and you could see that from my test scores.  As years passed, I was struggling even more in math. It was like a different language without a translator . I attended an after school program at the YMCA to help me do my homework, but it did not help very much.  When I started fourth grade, my teacher used to hand out multiplication tests to test us . When it was time for the parent teacher’s conference, I knew exactly what the teacher would say: ‘Your son is a splendid kid, really quiet, always does his homework but; his math grades are poor.’

I knew something had to be done but I was dreaming of my future. Ever since I was four I was always interested in airplanes. When my mother told me there was a high school that focused on airplanes, I told myself that when I reached the age of 14 I would be attending the school of my dreams. As I entered fifth grade however, I was still lacking adequate math skills. It was like I was cursed, forever.

My mother told me that I would be entering middle school after sixth grade, ‘Try your best so you can go to a good school.’ I took her advice and worked really hard. I improved my math skills and did well on every subject. During graduation, my name was called out and I received a medal and a certificate for being an honest student. In sixth grade I was the nerdy kid but I had awesome goalie skills in soccer. I got accepted to one of the best middle schools in NY. I got really emotional because I was thinking about my future. During the seventh grade I was doing great in all subjects, except one. You guessed it, math. Math was ruining my life once again. I sat next to the smart kids in the class.  I was ok for the first months of the school year.  My test grades were horrible. I was lucky I passed the grade with an 85 on math. During the eighth grade I was also struggling in math but this time I was in trouble. My teacher went out of control when you couldn’t answer the question. Once I cried in front of class because I just couldn’t solve a question. Then he made a lousy speech about how I was going to fail the New York State exam. Eighth grade was the worst year of my life.

Now recently I’m a ninth grade and I’m taking Algebra for a two year course. I was thinking to myself, ‘How am I gonna manage high school now, if I have the same problem like before?’ So I told myself that I would  try to reach my true potential. I told my mom to pay $100 dollars on Tutorvista, which I felt it was a rip off. My mother had to pay money because I just couldn’t understand the homework. When my Tutorvista trial ended, I was doomed. I was searching every site to look for help. Eventually, I found OpenStudy and I met this guy named Hero. Hero helped me with my math homework. Hero and I talk in Skype so he can give me lessons on the subjects I was struggling on. Hero actually spent his own time helping me. When the tests came I was the first one to be done. I was actually comprehending math! Recently I got the highest score in my math class, a 93! I am so proud of myself and thank everyone that helped me get there. If it wasn’t for OpenStudy and Hero, I don’t know what would have actually happened to me. I give my gratitude to Hero and OpenStudy for helping students like me reach their true potential.”

If this sounds like you, then you know where to go! As for Pokemon, look up, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Superman!

TranceNova comes to us from Australia and speaks some Swahili, and when she is not doing that, she is rocking MIT OCW Biology! We are really impressed that she was interviewed by the Chronicle of Higher Education.  Read it here.

Like many other people I stumbled upon the OpenStudy website. I remember being so curious about the questions and their answers. I spent a while roaming the numerous sections seeing what people were doing. Then I came across a question and I knew the answer! It was an interesting question and I just had to put an answer down, enlighten someone perhaps thousands of kilometers away from me. So I timidly answered the question, all the while worrying if my answer was wrong, too short, or any number of other things. So there my shiny answer sat and POP! –  a message came up, someone had given me a medal! I couldn’t believe it! Someone actually liked my answer?

It was from that moment I was utterly hooked, driven by the urge to help others (make them happy perhaps?), get achievements, and feel a little smart myself. In return I found new friends and a supportive community. I don’t think there is another way someone from Australia could meet someone from Tanzania and swap Swahili lessons, chat with a medical school student from Mexico, while at the same time helping a 12th grader agonizing over AP Biology.  I feel like my knowledge is useful to someone, and I have gained another friend in a foreign land.

I am now a postgraduate student in Ecology, Entomology and Soil Science. Through OpenStudy I am able to spread my knowledge of science and help others learn. OpenStudy has helped refresh things in my memory that I had learned long ago (and since completely forgotten!), which are coming in helpful, sometimes in unexpected places. I learn new things and old things and even found myself linking unrelated study areas to understand the same concepts, collaboration at its best!

How is your Swahili?  Join us today on OpenStudy and make a new friend in a foreign land!

You may wonder how out of the blue, I decided to post that comment. But even if you did not wonder, my story should explain it all.

My name is Samuel Sowah Mensah, but it is of my first two names that I derived the nickname “saso” and the addition geek is just because that is who I am. I am in 12^th grade in a school in Ghana, far away from OpenStudy.  I would love to go to a college in the US, and am working very hard to achieve that dream.

Seven years ago, my brothers and I had our first computer and it was a good old CRT monitor and a Pentium 4 Dell system. The only time I had used a computer before this was about 2 hours a week in school during the ICT class, a couple of years ago. The internet was a new thing to me, but out of curiosity, I wanted to know more about how the computer worked because using it was fascinating and interesting. One day I found that I could search for anything I wanted to know on the internet and find answers.  So then I began to save money during the week, and spend it all in an internet café, to gain more knowledge about computers. All this while, I was only a mediocre student at school, though wasn’t doing too poorly.

So two years later with my own personal laptop, I had the whole machine right in front of me, all for myself, but no internet!  I felt I could learn all I wanted at the comfort of my home anytime I wanted- if I had internet. So I convinced my parents to get us an internet connection at home and from then on, began learning, bit by bit, about computers.   I developed a passion for becoming a computer scientist because every bit of information I consumed about computers at the time was just fascinating.  What intrigued me most, was how programs work as well as how the internet works. They both seem to follow the same pattern of work flow, which was to follow instructions. So here was what was cool, I get to tell the computer what it should do and it has no choice but to obey me. What was cooler than that? So I jumped to the opportunity of learning how to code programs and build websites from scratch.

With this newfound passion, and obsession, my school work was going downhill. When I did realize this, I began to wonder whether I could use my knowledge of the internet to my advantage and to improve my grades. This was when I discovered OpenStudy.

How did I find OpenStudy? My interest in studying computer science led me to MIT’s OpenCourseWare Introduction to CS Programming course and OpenStudy’s logo invited me to me to study with others!  Lo and behold, it was an OpenStudy chat, and Owlfred welcomed me and helped me. That’s where it all began!

Since joining OpenStudy, I came to develop an interest in the pure sciences (especially physics) and mathematics; these were two subjects I previously hated with every bit of blood flowing through my body! Now I have the confidence that when I come across a problem in math and science, I will have a fair idea how to solve it.  I know I have probably seen something like that on OpenStudy, and that some one may have asked something similar.  I also feel that since I have expressed my solutions to problems either in class or on OpenStudy, I have helped other people, but most importantly, I have helped myself.

I was looking back to the beginning of this year, and thinking of how OpenStudy just came to play an important part of my life, how it gave me a new perspective on learning, and how much it reduced my fear of facing difficult questions.  I thought I should just put it out there about how much I appreciate OpenStudy, so I did.  I posted this on OpenStudy Feedback.  Then you noticed, and I even appreciate you more because you took it upon yourself to write a blog just about my comment. Once again, thank you. Thank you to the OpenStudy team as well for making learning such a wonderful game. I have found helping others to be fun and entertaining, and I have found that I also learn as I “teach.”

One day, with the help of my friends from all over the world, I hope to become a wonderful computer scientist and an amazing web developer!

-Samuel Sowah Mensah