Tutoring for fun and profit

[Buckeye]

Anyone tutor kids or adults attending school who need extra help with potentially tough subjects such as math? I'm thinking about doing some volunteering but I was also wondering if I could make some extra money. Time to get some return on my math degree!

[W2R]

I did some tutoring as well as a number of other jobs while struggling to pay my way through college, years ago. It was fun, but I got discouraged with pupils that didn't show up on time or skipped sessions with little advance notice. Most did not seem too serious and were more interested in partying than in their studies. Maybe there are other students interested in tutoring who are more serious.

[Buckeye]

Maybe younger students whose parents aren't able/interested in helping them get through their math classes are a better option.

[brewer12345]

Another oprtion is exam prep classes. My SIL used to teach Kaplan classes for the MCAT and I might eventually teach CFA prep classes if I want to bone up on the stuff I do not use regularly.

[mystang52]

Here in New Jersey tutors (usually full-time teachers) make significant $$$ for this part-time work, in the range of $50-100/hour. I'm not a school teacher, but tutoring is something I am considering once I am ER'd.

[Onward]

I did some exam-prep tutoring last year, and I'd recommend it as a way to make some extra $$.

[kumquat]

Sounds like a j*b to me. No thanks.

All kidding aside, DW does volunteer to tutor new immigrants in ESL. Finds it "rewarding".

[Buckeye]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kumquat Sounds like a j*b to me. No thanks.

I am about done with my current job but I don't think I'm ready to hang it up completely. I'm considering the one-year teacher certification program offered locally. It's time to do something new. I don't see myself in a classroom full-time but having the teaching credential could open up other opportunities related to tutoring and math. I found a website for a local group of certified (teacher) tutors who were so busy they weren't taking any additional business.

[youbet]

My DW tutors our grandson who has special needs. She's a retired Special Ed teacher with a long list of credentials, so it's a perfect fit. She saves our son and DIL about $200/week doing this. The catch? We insisted that our son and DIL increase their 401k contributions since they were spared the tutoring expense!

[growing_older]

I did some volunteer tutoring of high school math. One of the worst problems with volunteer tutoring was that the kids were enrolled reluctantly and because the sessions cost them nothing, they were not motivated to be prepared or even show up on time. After I started charging a nominal fee, attendance and attention improved considerably.

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Buckeye Anyone tutor kids or adults attending school who need extra help with potentially tough subjects such as math? I'm thinking about doing some volunteering but I was also wondering if I could make some extra money. Time to get some return on my math degree!

Quote:

Originally Posted by brewer12345 Another oprtion is exam prep classes. My SIL used to teach Kaplan classes for the MCAT and I might eventually teach CFA prep classes if I want to bone up on the stuff I do not use regularly.

Our daughter's first job was at a Kumon center, which is franchised out by neighborhoods or by school districts. Another equivalent might be Sylvan Learning Centers.

The franchise owner mainly hired college & high-school students for up to 15 hours/week (two afternoons and a Saturday morning). However she had two other adults on staff who were the franchise "experts" on the calculus and other advanced math subjects, and worked with just the advanced students. We got to know those adults pretty well when our daughter worked her way up to those stratospheric levels. They also occasionally consulted to other Kumon franchises to teach the staff how to grade the kid's work at that level.

It's not necessarily more than minimum wage, but the kids who get to this level are generally the cream of the crop. You occasionally encounter a prodigy or a genius, or they're just extremely motivated. They're a lot of fun to work with. I started chatting with one of her students, a middle-schooler who knew my submarine background, and it turned out that she set me up he'd been saving a number of materials-science questions for me about the relative advantages of titanium hulls over HY80 steel. It was like blundering into a pop quiz hosted by Naval Sea Systems Command.

I wouldn't be so excited about a high school as I would be about a community college or a trade school. Those young adults can appreciate the difference that math will make in their paychecks lives.

[brewer12345]

I had a very strange experience with a tutoring job many moons ago. When I graduated college I had a tough time finding a job since the labor market was iffy and the economy was still coming out of recession. I ended up kicking around my college town for 5 or 6 months delivering pizza and enjoying the nice weather (DW was at that point my fiance and had found a job). The pizza joint's owner had a wife who was probably late 30s or early 40s and had gone back to college since she had never gotten a degree. She was struggling with statistics and the owner asked if I would tutor her (of course I agreed). They had a lovely house outside of town (my first clue that the pizza business is a goldmine) and I actually enjoyed helping the boss' wife get up to speed on statistics (the only bit of math I happen to be somewhat competent in).

But the ribbing I got from the other pizza joint workers! They were mostly small town poor working people and probably had no real idea what I was helping the boss' wife with. But seeing me get sent off to the house in the middle of a slow shift to tutor the boss' moderately attractive blonde wife while he was running the place obviously ignited lots of fantasies in their minds. I don't think the ribbing stopped until I finally got a "real" job and left.