10 Jul 2014

Meet Lita, The New SAT & TOEFL Program Coordinator

 

With an ever-expanding list of courses that we offer here at YPrep Academy, we felt that it was time we had someone more responsible to take care of things. Luckily, we were able to find that person in Lita Sripatanasakul. Aside from being the new head person in charge of SAT and our new TOEFL program, Lita will also be our resident UK Admissions Expert. To better know her, we decided to give her a rigorous interview to find out just how awesome she is.

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YPrep: Tell us about your background.

Lita: I was born and raised in Thailand. When I started middle school, my parents put me into a bilingual program at Satit Patumwan. I was gonna go to a Thai University at the beginning and I was already accepted to many programs, but then I realized that I had to take the SAT anyway, so I decided to also send my score and application to some the universities in the U.S. The result was quite surprising because I got into most of the universities that I applied to. I eventually decided to go to Brandeis.

YPrep: Did you enjoy your studies in the U.S.?

Lita: I had fun at Brandeis. Since it was a liberal arts school, I had to take classes outside of my concentration and I actually really enjoyed them. I had a chance to learn Mandarin and drawing, and they turned out to be quite useful. Another good thing about Brandeis was that I could major in more than one area, so I ended up studying Economics, International & Global Studies, and minoring in Business.

YPrep: After Brandeis, what did you do?

Lita: I just went straight to Oxford.

YPrep: How did you end up in England?

Lita: Brandeis allows students to go study abroad during their junior year. Initially, I wanted to go to China because I had been studying Mandarin for the first two years, but I found out that I had to pay the same amount of tuition fee, so I changed my mind and decided to go to the U.K. I had a really great time during my exchange year and I wanted to go back again. That’s when I decided to apply to Oxford for my Master’s Degree. It was the only place that I applied to actually, because I thought to myself that if it wasn’t Oxford, I would not want to get my Master’s Degree yet. Luckily, I got in.

YPrep: What was it like to study in Oxford?

Lita: It was so difficult but I loved it. My exchange year was quite tough. For every single week, I had to read at least 5 books and write at least 4000 words on them. Then I had to discuss and defend what I wrote with a tutor. It was so difficult at the beginning but there was a learning curve and I ended up really enjoying it.

When I went back for my Master’s Degree, I still had to read and write a lot. It was a bit more relaxing during the year because there was no tutorial. But, towards the end, it got a lot more difficult because I had to take the final exam, which counted for 100% of the grade. Unlike the American System where there were several midterms and a final, I had only one chance. There was so much pressure. I did learn and grew a lot during that year though.

YPrep: And what did you do after Oxford?

Lita: I came back to Thailand and worked for Baker & McKenzie as a Business Development Coordinator for almost a year.

YPrep: What made you decide to pursue teaching?

Lita: I have always wanted to teach actually but I haven’t really thought about making it into a career. But after working for a big firm for a while, I realized that it wasn’t really for me so I started teaching as my part time job. I ended up really enjoying it, so I quit my job and started teaching full time.

YPrep: And now we tricked you into working for us full time! Muahahahaha…I mean, we’re glad to have you with us.

Lita: I’m glad to be here too.

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