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so as the job hunt continues for something a little bit more stable i decided i'd do something that i know i'm already good at. i have tons of teaching experience, and i've been tutoring through this website quite a bit (wyzant.com). its sorta like contracted work. they refer students to me, i charge $30/hr, they take a cut, so i make like 65%. still, at $20/hr fresh outta college in this crappy economy, i'm pretty happy. besides, i just need to survive until i hopefully get into some med school 
subjects i tutor:
-mostly chemistry and biochemistry
-a little bit of calculus
-i'm qualified to tutor physics, but don't get too many clients for this subject
of course, some of my students are cool, and they'd rather pay me cash, so sometimes i end up taking like $80-100 cash home after tutoring like 2-3 students for like 2-3 hours.
pros of freelance tutoring?
-set your own hours
-sleep when you want/wake up when you want
-charge what you want
-tutor what you want (i can tutor algebra/precalc/etc, but honestly its not as fun as the stuff i like to tutor)
-cute girls (seriously, 95% of my clients are females, and of those 60% of them are pretty good looking, and the remaining aren't even that ugly. tutored some MILF/cougar the other day, and tutored some really cute girl today)
-cute girls flirting?
cons:
-not as stable of income as i'd like
-winter break/summer break might be harsh considering many people don't take classes
-driving all over town. seriously, i don't mind tutoring at the university nearby, cuz its only 12 miles one way, but some people want me to go the other side of town, its about 25-30 miles (all highway, but still...). i can't exactly refuse, because i need the cash and by tutoring tons of people i build up my reputation/profile on this website
-random ass timings sometimes. sometimes i'll have a day when only 1 student wants to meet for like an hour or two, and some days i'll have 4 students who each want to meet for like 2-3 hours each.
-random ass times +1. students will literally call you and expect to be fit in the next day. lol. but usually they are pretty flexible too
how to address scheduling conflicts?
so lets say we have 3 students who want to meet tomorrow at 5 pm. which one do you give priority to?
-super cute girl who has a test the next day (you've tutored the girl already for about 6 hours in the past 2 days)
-funny/friendly guy who probably doesn't have a test soon (still a good client, would be a bad idea to blow him off)
-funny/friendly guy's friend (see the building up your reputation part?)
easy way to resolve conflict?
-start with cute girl early let's say 5 pm-8 pm
-ask two friends if a joint session is ok (obv charge double, but give discount), start at 8 pm end at 10 pm?
-unless...cute girl asks for an all night session... (hopefully my gf doesn't read this, but at least she can't come and slap me because she's all the way in taiwan for another 6 months).
this is like freelancing anything, you build a reputation and you get clients based off your reputation. if you suck at teaching don't waste time, if you're good then you can make some serious $$$.
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That seems like a pretty sweet job. Would this be successful for people with not much tutoring experience? I had only tutored one person for money and it didnt turn out well. I'm not sure if it was me or him though... haha
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Have you considered tutoring online from sites like studentoffortune.com? Those students seem to be more into having the answers handed to them rather than learning though. Apparently the highest earner on that site has made over $280K (http://studentoffortune.com/user/SPQR/profile), but I suspect he might be selling stolen solution manuals/test banks from publishers.
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On October 06 2011 14:39 AoN.DimSum wrote:
That seems like a pretty sweet job. Would this be successful for people with not much tutoring experience? I had only tutored one person for money and it didnt turn out well. I'm not sure if it was me or him though... haha
so, i had some teaching experience that people could be confident with. but honestly, you can build your profile from zero ratings to a couple of ratings real fast. you can charge like $15-20 to start with in the beginning, that way people won't be hesitant to try you out. if they like you, they'll continue. obviously, wyzant takes 40% for doing nothing (ok maybe they process credit cards and have to keep a website), but its still an exorbitant amount. so if you charge $15 you'll only see 60% of that. here's the thing though, you tutor 2-3 people, and you get 3 five-star ratings, and all of a sudden you have this massive amount of credibility. that's where the fun begins. at the beginning of this year, i was charging $50/hr with about ZERO ratings. i tutored maybe 4-5 kids in 5 months. then i dropped my price to $30/hr and all of a sudden started getting more clients, and then a few of my non lazy students actually gave me a rating, so my profile shot up to somewhere near the top. i'm now getting something like 2-3 different clients a week, and my old clients still want to meet 2-4 hours a week. so things are booking up pretty fast.
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On October 06 2011 14:43 tpyo wrote:
Have you considered tutoring online from sites like studentoffortune.com? Those students seem to be more into having the answers handed to them rather than learning though. Apparently the highest earner on that site has made over $280K (http://studentoffortune.com/user/SPQR/profile), but I suspect he might be selling stolen solution manuals/test banks from publishers.
i haven't considered that or seen that. thanks for sharing that site. honestly, though, it wouldn't be fun. some of my students like to have a conversation with me about just random stuff, talk about life, etc, ie today, this girl just talked for 10-15 minutes about how crappy her day was, then asked me like all sorts of random/personal questions etc. its seriously a lot of fun, especially when people are passionate and they want to learn. its just a lot more fun by far.
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If you dont' mind me asking, what do you mean when you say you have "tons of teaching experience"?
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On October 06 2011 14:49 LiAlH4 wrote:
If you dont' mind me asking, what do you mean when you say you have "tons of teaching experience"?
i was a biology lab TA for about 2 years, and i was a preceptor for biochemistry in college. besides all this, i do research and stuff which helps because you have to know how to communicate efficiently. honestly though, you don't need "tons of teaching experience" in complicated subjects (organic chemistry, physical chemistry, etc). there are plenty of parents who want their high schoolers to learn algebra/geometry/etc, so you can start off with those sorts of clients.
i just noticed your name LOL the girl i was tutoring today has an ochem test on friday. she took ochem 1 a year ago, and is now taking ochem 2. can barely convert formula to kekule structure. i've been trying to teach her oxidation/reduction reactions and we still have EAS and diels alder left before her test. she also doesn't know resonance... >.<
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On October 06 2011 14:46 yourwhiteshadow wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2011 14:39 AoN.DimSum wrote:
That seems like a pretty sweet job. Would this be successful for people with not much tutoring experience? I had only tutored one person for money and it didnt turn out well. I'm not sure if it was me or him though... haha
so, i had some teaching experience that people could be confident with. but honestly, you can build your profile from zero ratings to a couple of ratings real fast. you can charge like $15-20 to start with in the beginning, that way people won't be hesitant to try you out. if they like you, they'll continue. obviously, wyzant takes 40% for doing nothing (ok maybe they process credit cards and have to keep a website), but its still an exorbitant amount. so if you charge $15 you'll only see 60% of that. here's the thing though, you tutor 2-3 people, and you get 3 five-star ratings, and all of a sudden you have this massive amount of credibility. that's where the fun begins. at the beginning of this year, i was charging $50/hr with about ZERO ratings. i tutored maybe 4-5 kids in 5 months. then i dropped my price to $30/hr and all of a sudden started getting more clients, and then a few of my non lazy students actually gave me a rating, so my profile shot up to somewhere near the top. i'm now getting something like 2-3 different clients a week, and my old clients still want to meet 2-4 hours a week. so things are booking up pretty fast.
Ok thank you! I enjoyed tutoring, I'll give it a shot.
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That's pretty cool, a decent way to make ends meet for sure. How do you handle timing the session and charging? Do you have a clock or something you set up or just kinda guess/round the time? What do you say at the end, if you don't mind, "that'll be 40 bucks" or what?
Good luck with med school, although I hate having premed students in my classes. You guys move the curve way up in all my chem classes (especially ochem, holy crap)
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On October 06 2011 14:55 yourwhiteshadow wrote:
can barely convert formula to kekule structure. i've been trying to teach her oxidation/reduction reactions and we still have EAS and diels alder left before her test. she also doesn't know resonance... >.<
LEO goes GER.
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This is great. I'm considering this.
Just posted a tutorial on studentoffortune lol
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On October 06 2011 14:56 AoN.DimSum wrote:Ok thank you! I enjoyed tutoring, I'll give it a shot.
yeah no problem. you can make some really good money, so def give it a shot.
On October 06 2011 15:00 Molybdenum wrote:
That's pretty cool, a decent way to make ends meet for sure. How do you handle timing the session and charging? Do you have a clock or something you set up or just kinda guess/round the time? What do you say at the end, if you don't mind, "that'll be 40 bucks" or what?
Good luck with med school, although I hate having premed students in my classes. You guys move the curve way up in all my chem classes (especially ochem, holy crap)
usually they'll ask how the payments work. so you just tell them you'll put in about 1 hour on the website. the website then charges their CC your rate, and then gives you your cut. also, some people are quite smart and know that you are contracted and that you're only getting a certain percentage of your rate. they'll offer cash, and you can just say that you can figure things out later. you don't want to get a relatively new student who you don't know, and they report your profile. there goes all your ratings and what not. also, its beneficial to at least charge a student once online so they can leave positive feedback on your profile
On October 06 2011 15:03 Skipper240 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2011 14:55 yourwhiteshadow wrote:
can barely convert formula to kekule structure. i've been trying to teach her oxidation/reduction reactions and we still have EAS and diels alder left before her test. she also doesn't know resonance... >.< LEO goes GER.
not quite that easy. hahaha. i just showed her to count bonds to oxygens/hydrogens. much easier than assigning oxidation numbers.
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EPT
