Who we are and how we got here
Taking a look back at our posts, we realized we never properly introduced ourselves, so we wanted to take a moment to talk a little bit about us and how we found ourselves running Eritus Education. We took turns writing our separate bios, so sit back, relax, and get to know us!
(And if you find yourself having yet more questions, never hesitate to reach out. ☺️)
← Touring Sam’s alma mater!
👋 About Sam
I suppose I should start where everyone does — with my name, Sam. For as long as I can remember I’ve always been incredibly passionate about education. And more so than simply instilling it in others, but also my own education. Through every class I’ve taken from middle school to high school to college and beyond, I just have an innate sense of wonder and curiosity that is yet to be satisfied. That same love of learning for learning’s sake is crucial. It’s more than simply a way to get good grades or gain acceptance into a strong college, but a way to better understand the world.
👶🏻 My Childhood
I grew up in England 🏴 in a town called Northampton. It’s about an hour north of London, and there wasn’t a whole lot going on there with the exception of our local rugby team (come on you Saints!). English education is quite different from the United States, though. The curriculum there really expanded my horizons and showed me the vastness of information that could be learned. From Math and English to Religious Studies, Latin, and Design Technology, the sheer breadth of classes meant exposure to a multitude of futures.
When my family relocated to Orange County 🍊, California about two weeks before high school started, I took that same mentality and applied it to my class schedule. I attended a Catholic high school that gave me a lot of opportunity and I spent the next four years taking as many honors and AP classes as I could, hoping to eventually go to college and major in international relations or political science or something very much in the non-STEM field. During the fall of senior year, I was accepted early to Stanford and (naturally) was overjoyed as it was my first choice.
🖥️ College and Early Career
Stepping foot on Stanford’s campus was unreal for me. It’s as amazing as it looks and nothing short of beautiful. But after my first year, I realized that international relations wasn’t quite going to cut it for me. I wanted to keep learning more and more and push my boundaries, so I switched to materials science and engineering. Yep, I know. It’s an entire 180 from my original path, but I’d always found chemistry fascinating, and I loved the challenge of something that didn’t come naturally to me. Three years later, I graduated but decided to go into the tech world that is abundant in the Bay Area.
I spent my first couple of years working at a fintech startup as a business analyst, learning the ins and outs of KPIs, metrics, and data analysis before undertaking a switch into data science and predictive analytics. I had an amazing mentor who received her PhD in Data Science (in 2008) long before it was the hot new thing. She, along with another friend, taught me the math and computer science required to go into data science, and for a while I loved it. It was something new and something difficult.
Not long after, I moved to a larger SaaS company working in product analytics before transitioning once more to product management. It was yet another challenge that I wanted to undertake — to do the customer-facing work. But at the same time, I always felt like I wasn’t being satisfied from an emotional perspective. While I loved the mental challenges my work offered, it wasn’t fulfilling. So I started to tutor again: something I’d done in high school and college. It was on the side as an extra job, but for me it was incredibly fulfilling. It didn’t take me long to realize that this is what I wanted to do.
🔎 Founding Eritus
I want to empower kids to make the most of their futures. I want to set them up for success and happiness in the long term, and not just what their parents want, but what they want. When I eventually moved from my SaaS company to a new healthcare startup (leading their data science and analytics team), I also decided (along with my wife, Liyang) to found Eritus Education. My goal was to ultimately make the switch full time to Eritus once we got it up off the ground.
That was around six years ago, now. In the years since, we’ve rapidly grown, providing academic tutoring, test prep tutoring, career mentoring, and of course college counseling to countless students and families. We eventually got our own office, moving from strictly virtual offerings to in-person as well, and have even started our own community outreach program for folks who want college guidance but maybe aren’t ready to commit yet to a plan, or it’s simply not economically possible.
Going forward, we’re devoted to always striving to improve our offerings, to improve the quality of our guidance and education, and hopefully widen our impact throughout our community and beyond. So, why do we do what we do? We do it because we believe that students deserve guidance that’s personal, ambitious, friendly, firm, and at the end of the day, we believe that no one should be denied opportunity simply because they don’t know where to start.
👋 About Liyang (立洋）
I’m Liyang, Sam’s wife and the other half of Eritus!
From Beijing (北京) 🇨🇳 to San Diego (圣地亚哥) 🇺🇸
My family and I immigrated to San Diego from Beijing, China when I was six. It was daunting being in an unfamiliar country, but I picked up the new language quickly. As I became more and more comfortable with English, I’d make frequent trips to our local libraries with my mom where we’d carry out dozens of books by the armful. I could travel to distant lands, explore fantasy worlds, and go on thrilling adventures… all from my living room. My love of reading (and soon after, creative writing) blossomed from there, two of my favorite hobbies still today! Overall, I’d say I definitely had a more “artsy” childhood — when I wasn’t reading books, I was either playing music in ensembles or learning art, violin, piano, and vocals. 🎨 🎻 🎹 🎶
I loved growing up in San Diego. Fun fact: I attended 4 elementary schools, 1 middle school, and 2 high schools here. Having started over at so many schools, it didn’t take me long to realize the importance of building community wherever I was. I brought this ethos with me to my main high school’s (CCA) unique conservatory program, where we spent hours after school each week honing our craft. Mine was instrumental music, specifically violin. Looking back, I was actively involved with one school ensemble or another every single year all throughout middle school, high school, and college. Music has always been a big community for me.
🤓 College to Career
I may have been decisive about playing music at college, but I was a lot less certain about what I wanted to study. It took me two full years of exploration to decide on my major, after much trial and error. I ultimately chose Cognitive Science because what could be more interesting than the human mind? 🧠 I’m grateful to have taken such a wide, interesting breadth of courses at UC Berkeley both within and beyond my major — notable mentions include: a 12-person creative writing seminar, “Wealth & Poverty” with Professor Robert Reich, and “The Psychology of Sleep” with Professor Matthew Walker.
After graduating, my first full-time job as a recruiter in San Francisco was rewarding because I was helping both people find new jobs and companies find new employees. Each one of the hundreds upon hundreds of listings I wrote and resumes I edited was important, because I was supporting my community. And after speaking with countless job candidates over those two years, I gained a much, much deeper appreciation for meeting new people. (Also, believe it or not, actually enjoying small talk!)
My next career adventure brought me to a mission-driven software startup supporting nonprofits from all over the world. Over the next seven years, I helped build the company from the ground up, paving its way forward in operations, business, HR, and finance. It was gratifying to witness the company grow by more than 10x in size and revenue, but even more fulfilling to think about the thousands of nonprofits that we served along the way and all the stories that we helped make possible. 🌎
🔎 Founding Eritus
Throughout all my activities and work experiences — playing in orchestras, interning at a congressional office, doing neuroscience research at Cal and Stanford, finding people jobs, supporting nonprofits — there’s been one common link. Helping others and uplifting my community has always been at my core. And did I mention that my parents have been in education for over 20 years? It’s no surprise that I’m now working alongside Sam as a counselor, empowering students and helping them navigate their unique academic journeys.
And I can confidently say that being a mentor is my most fulfilling role yet. 💚
