Vanessa Vakharia helps you overcome your math fears
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Young Women in Business Toronto (YWiB) aims to provide our diverse community of young, self-identified women with genuine career advice, encouragement, and examples of local role models. That's why, for the next few months, we’ll be interviewing both career professionals and entrepreneurs our community can be inspired by and learn from.
Vanessa Vakharia, CEO of The Math Guru
Tell us a little bit more about yourself!
I’m the founder and director of The Math Guru, a super cool boutique math & science tutoring studio in Toronto. I’m also the author of Math Hacks, a book that makes math fun, stress-free and relatable for young kids and parents AND I’m the host of a podcast called Math Therapy, where I help guests work through their math trauma, one problem at a time!
My #goals are to be Lady-Gaga-famous and to change math culture so that STEM is finally as cool and accessible as basically every single Taylor Swift song ever.
I failed Grade 11 math twice, which was the best thing that ever happened to me.
Side note but relevant: I’m a founding member of Toronto indie-rock band Goodnight, Sunrise. Mindy Kaling is my idol!
How did the Math Therapy podcast come about?
Every time I was on TV or the radio, the reporter interviewing me would always say the same thing: “I hate math! In grade 4, Mrs. Blah Blah told me I was bad at math and ever since I HATE numbers.”
After one of these instances, my PR gal - and now podcast producer - Sabina and I were walking out of the radio station, and we were “All these people need math therapy! We should make a podcast!” We were kind of joking about it. But on the way back to my house, we started thinking this is something we should actually do. And now we’re finishing up season 2 of “Math Therapy”!
What has been your own relationship with math?
It’s been a JOURNEY. I started off being one of those people who would say: “I’m not a math person! I’m an artsy person!” I wanted to be a rockstar (and still do) and I wanted to marry Keanu Reeves (also still do), and I don’t need math to do EITHER of these things, and besides people like me aren’t good at math!
When I failed grade 11 math for the second time, my parents sent me to an alternative school. It was there that I met a math teacher who changed my life (now one of my best friends!). When I told her that she was going to have a hard time with me because I wasn’t a “math person,” she looked me right in the eyes and was like, “What? What is a math person? That’s not a thing.” She showed me that putting that label on myself was preventing me from even trying in math class. And once I started trying and doing my math homework, I came to love it. I graduated Grade 12 math with a 99% in BOTH of my Grade 12 math classes that year!
She showed me that putting that label on myself was preventing me from even trying in math class.
I eventually went on to get a teaching degree, crush a Master’s in math education, start my tutoring studio, The Math Guru. Now I’m on a mission to show everyone that they can do math - and by proxy, do absolutely ANY of the things they once considered impossible!
What is your main goal for this podcast?
My main goal is to show everyone that they can do math, and therefore, can do anything! Remember that feeling of when you were a kid and you felt like you could do literally anything? That’s the feeling I want everyone to feel. So I use math as an entry point to that feeling because how good does it feel when you solve a math problem!? You feel INVINCIBLE.
From your experience and research, have there been any stereotypes (or even statistics) regarding young women and their interest or abilities in mathematics? Is there anything that continues to surprise you or that you think most people don't know about?
There is so much around this. In fact, I even wrote my whole Master’s thesis on this topic. It’s called “Imagining a World Where Paris Hilton Loves Mathematics.”
To me, the biggest issue with young women thinking that they “can’t” do math is the media. For instance, an article came out last year titled “Are boys better than girls at math?” For most of us who JUST READ HEADLINES, the answer seems to be in the title. Upon reading the actual article, the sample sizes are small and most studies conclude that results are negligible, if present at all.
The bigger question is, why are we so hell-bent on proving that boys are better than girls at math?!
I was on a radio interview in early November where the host said to me “So, a study just came out proving that upon doing brain scans of both both boys and girls, that it’s been proven that there is NO difference in math ability - can you believe that?!” When I responded that we have known this for YEARS, he followed up with, “… but I wonder if that changes after puberty…” Like, WHAT?! This never fails to shock me, even though it happens way too often - from both adult men and women, who should know better.
What keeps surprising me is how much we continue to push this narrative that girls are bad at math. Or if they’re good at math, they can’t possibly like makeup or like Taylor Swift. We need to see more cheerleaders who love algebra, mathletes who love Taylor Swift and more. I don’t want Cady Heron to have to choose between mathletes and Aaron Samuels, or girls to think that they can only be scientists if they are anti-social and don’t meet traditional beauty standards (looking at you, “Big Bang Theory”).
I wrote my Master’s these back in 2012, and since then, there have been a ton of studies around girls in STEM. The sad thing is that these studies have further proven that the patriarchy is keeping girls from succeeding in math, simply by outright telling them that they’re not good at math!
What have you learned about being a woman entrepreneur working in math and math education?
So many of the obstacles I face in both the entrepreneurship world and math world have to do with my appearance, which is ridiculous! I’ve been told so many times that I don’t ‘look’ like a math teacher or say ‘like’ too much to be a professional speaker. I'm sorry, but what does that even mean!?
These challenges taught me the most important thing: I see things differently, and that's my strength. I'm one of the few math educators who realized how much the math learning environment contributes to kids' - especially girls' - desire to learn math. For example, no one is going to want to learn in a room that is grey and gross. But they do want to learn in an environment that has comfy couches, pi tea lattes (The Math Guru's specialty beverage, comes with every tutoring session) and colourful walls. This welcoming environment is a big part of the reason why so many of our students have come to love math.
As cliché as it is, I've learned not to care as much as about what other people think and to trust myself and my students over what people who know nothing about me or my industry have to say - even if what I'm saying sounds totally off the wall. It's hard, but worth it!
Our community is made up of mostly young women, between the ages of 25 to 35 years old. What advice and tips would you give to those among them who may be interested in an entrepreneurial career in the STEM field?
What's so great about STEM is that it's LITERALLY all about failure! What do you think "experiments" are? People just screwing up over and over again until they find some new information! That's exactly what STEM is, and exactly what entrepreneurship is. So my advice is to not fear FAILURE. Make it your friend and use it to your advantage. You can't have success without MANY failures behind you!
My advice is to not fear FAILURE. Make it your friend and use it to your advantage.
What is the message you want young, self-identified women to hear?
YOU CAN DO MATH. YOU CAN DO MATH. YOU CAN DO MATH. Once you realize that, you’ll realize you can do ANYTHING.
Vanessa Vakharia is a math educator, CEO and founder of Toronto's boutique math and science tutoring studio, The Math Guru, host of the podcast "Math Therapy" and author of "Math Hacks: Cool Tips + Less Stress = Better Marks."