Smart matches.
Better learning.

When I crossed the graduation stage and held up my diploma, I felt an overwhelming amount of pride, but I also felt afraid.

Before becoming disabled, I imagined a very different future for myself. I dreamt of pursuing a PhD in neuroscience and possibly becoming some kind of doctor. When I acquired my disability and chronic illness, those plans changed drastically. It was not because I stopped caring or dreaming, but because my body and health had changed without giving me a choice.

Returning to school after my hospitalization was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. At times, listening to only the first few minutes of a class felt as though my body had already run ten marathons. I was learning how to navigate overwhelming fatigue, chronic pain, limited mobility, and a life that suddenly required me to depend on other people for things I had once done independently.

School had always been one of my greatest strengths and one of the few things in life I felt I could control. When my disability made continuing feel almost impossible, it felt as though that part of me had been ripped away without warning.

But slowly, I began learning something that would later become central to RICHNERDS: needing a different approach does not make someone less intelligent, less motivated, or less capable.

I learned how important it is to have support that listens to the individual instead of expecting the individual to continuously fight against an environment that was never designed for them. I learned that rest is not laziness, accommodations are not advantages, and asking for information or expectations to be adapted is not a failure.

Graduating did not mean that my disability disappeared or that everything suddenly became easy. It meant that I had accomplished something I once feared my body would no longer allow me to do. It also marked the moment when I realized I could not continue measuring success by how far I could push myself past my own limits. I needed to begin working with my body instead of constantly fighting against it.

After graduation, I did not immediately know what would come next. I felt uncertain about my career and questioned what kind of future could still be possible for me. Then, what initially felt like uncertainty slowly began turning into direction. RICHNERDS began to feel like a new sense of purpose.

Through my experiences in tutoring, mentoring, behavioral science, disability advocacy, and education, I had already seen how many incredibly capable students were being overlooked. Some students did not need the same explanation repeated again. They needed someone to slow down, understand how they processed information, and find another way to reach them.

My colleague and co-founder, Jasmine, had witnessed many of the same problems through her education in kinesiology, her work supporting children with disabilities, and her personal experience helping younger siblings who needed tutoring themselves.

Together, we created RICHNERDS around a belief that is deeply personal to both of us: students should not have to prove their worth by succeeding within one rigid way of learning.

We want to provide support that considers the whole student, including their current skill level, personality, strengths, learning preferences, goals, disability, neurodivergence, language, comfort, and individual circumstances. A student does not need a diagnosis to deserve patience, creativity, or an explanation that finally makes sense to them.

RICHNERDS is more than a tutoring network to us. It is our way of helping students feel understood before they begin believing that struggling means they are incapable.

Because sometimes, the student does not need to try harder.
Sometimes, they simply need someone willing to try differently.