William Gooden is from Morgantown, West Virginia, and has been with the tutoring center since this spring. Despite currently being a Quantitative Reasoning tutor, growing up William says he wasn’t always big on math and preferred history because his father is a history professor. However, during his first semester at ABAC, he found himself doing quite well in Quantitative Reasoning. When he began helping other students through the course, his professor, Mrs. Urquhart, encouraged him to sign up to be a tutor.
William is a wildlife management major in his sophomore year. His interest in wildlife was sparked from a young age by the stories his grandfather used to tell him and his dad. For example, his grandfather once told him about a time he and his family went deer hunting. They were doing a “deer drive,” where one shooter is standing and the four people try to herd deer towards them. As they were deer hunting, his grandfather says they were in a part of the woods where the rhododendron was so thick, they could walk on top of them, and his grandfather did so. At some point, his grandfather says he fell straight through the rhododendron…straight onto the back of a black bear. William’s grandfather says the black bear bolted straight towards his family all while he was screaming “Shoot it! Shoot it!” his son shot the bear. Stories like these inspired Will’s dad to get into familial history, but Will took an interest in wildlife instead.
Despite growing up with a love for the wild, William wasn’t sure what he wanted to do for a living for a few years after high school. One year, he took his mother out for a Mother’s Day fishing trip, specifically to a spot that had really rare flowers blooming. They waded out into the middle of the river to fish. Although they didn’t catch much, after spending the day together, his mother smacked him on the back of the head and said, “You need to go to school for this stuff.” So he did!
This semester, William hopes to also take on tutoring Quantitative Methods and Dendrology, with Dendrology being a hard subject to find tutors for. Students are required to learn the family name, the scientific name, and the common names of at least 90 trees and shrubs; they also need to be able to recognize them on sight. This class moves very quickly, with students required to learn between five and six new trees every class period. Furthermore, many Dendrology classes have a quiz almost every single class period.
This class quickly became an uphill battle for William when he had to quarantine for two weeks, then miss a week for a funeral, and then immediately go into his mid-term. He was missing 18 different trees at the time. He says that if it weren’t for the YOW’s current Dendrology tutor, there’s no way he would have been able to pass. Now he’s preparing to give the gift of passing Dendrology to other students.
In the future, he hopes to attend graduate school, perhaps UGA, West Virginia University, or Montana State University. Afterwards, he hopes to work for the federal government.
In William’s spare time he likes to fish and to hunt. He likes to fish for bass, saltwater trout, mountain trout, and bowfin. He also says he does a little fly fishing. When it comes to hunting, he prefers to hunt birds, like turkeys, ducks, and doves. He’s also the vice president of the Wildlife Society, and a member of the Beekeepers Association. When not enjoying the outdoors, he likes to play “The Legend of Zelda,” “Halo,” and “The Witcher,” he likes to read books like “Bertrham’s Travels,” watch tv, and listen to a wide range of music, everything from japanese pop to the Blue Man Group.
When asked what his advice would be if a student was feeling shy about coming to tutoring, he says that when someone books his sessions he spends the first session getting to know them. “Oftentimes it’s getting to be friends before being someone’s tutor.”
He tutors on Monday, from 1 p.m.- 3:30 p.m., Tuesday 10 a.m. – 11:30 a.m., and 4 p.m. – 5:50 p.m., Wednesday 12 p.m. – 1 p.m., and 5 p.m. – 6:30 p.m., and Thursday 10 a.m. – 11:30 a.m., and 5 p.m. – 6 p.m.
