The Ups & Downs of Being a Tutor while in College

Tutoring is an excellent addition to your resume, as well as a great way to build on some work experience. The benefits of this go way beyond those you enjoy by getting a ‘traditional part-time job’. If you want to study and work in the academic world instead of serving food or folding clothes to enrich your resume after college, this is an excellent alternative for you.

‘’Any part-time job is an excellent experience for a college student. They learn how to be organized and responsible and earn some income in the process. But, I have found that tutoring is the most beneficial path to take while studying in college because it allows you to enjoy unique perks you wouldn’t be able to get if you were, let’s say, serving up appetizers in the nearest snack bar.’’ – says Bethany Green, a tutor.

There are upsides and downsides to every job you will consider. This is an important decision to make and to make the right one, you need to know both the good and bad about tutoring while in college.

The Upsides:

Financially Awarding-

Tutoring is an excellent way to create an income while in college. This will not only help you gain some valuable, academic work experience, but also assist you in funding your studies, cover living expenses, and put some money on the side. Also read, How to Overcome Online Teaching Challenges?

Flexibility-

Any other part-time job you will choose will probably take a set amount of time each day. You have work hours and need to dedicate a solid portion of your already-busy day to work. With tutoring, you can adapt your working schedule as you wish. The biggest perk of this is, of course, being your own boss.

Improves Skills and Knowledge-

When you teach another person, you are improving your own understanding of the subject. Tutoring is known to develop an excellent set of academic skills, as well as promote communication and help you advance your leadership skills.

Since you need to organize your time and the learning schedule of the person you are tutoring, this automatically provides you with an improvement in your critical thinking and organization skills. Moreover, tutoring often requires patience, which can be very helpful for you in the future.

Great addition to Resume-

The sole mention of tutoring as your part-time job in college will convey some grade of professionalism in the resume you will write for a job. Tutoring experience looks very remarkable on a resume.

Opportunity for Remote Work-

Many students nowadays prefer to have their tutoring lessons online. This gives you a much wider range of students you can teach. As a college student, you can teach those of your age or students enrolled in lower academic levels. Since remote tutoring is now a very popular option, you can find students to tutor much easier and more often than you would with the ‘traditional kind’.

Emotional Gratification-

Sharing your knowledge and aiding others can be very rewarding. When you help another student improve their academic performance, this can make you very satisfied and fulfilled with yourself.

Develops Creativity-

In addition to organization, a tutor must be creative with the methods they use for teaching others then traditional materials. Depending on the individual you are tutoring, you’ll have to adapt to their progress and learning style. Based on this information, you need to use your creativity to create and present the materials for learning.

The Downsides:

Difficulties to gain credibility-

As with any other ‘freelancing’ work, you need to gain some credibility with students in order to get the students you can tutor. In the past, students had to find people to tutor and these people were usually friends and family members who paid a little or nothing at all. They had to take baby steps to get word-of-mouth acknowledgment. This can be hard but is made much easier now that remote tutoring is possible.

It may take some time until you get the hang of it, but you can start by tutoring your friends and family, or joining tutoring websites and searching for students in need of help online.

Requires a lot of persistence and patience-

If you are not a patient person, you will find this job very challenging. Attempting to tutor others can help you develop all these skills, but only if you have the patience to teach others.

Requires organization and preparation-

You are your own boss, meaning that you’ll have to organize your time and schedule the tutoring hours. This also means that you have to prepare the materials, use your skills to detect the issues the specific student is facing, and creatively create the best teaching methods to help them achieve their goals.

Unpredictable cancellations-

Every once in a while, a student will cancel your scheduled tutoring lesson. In some cases, they won’t even show up for some reason. This means that you won’t get the payment you planned for and expected, which can be really frustrating.

You will probably find a way to avoid such situations after a while, but if you want your tutoring business to provide you with the financial benefits you expect, you need to create a good cancellation system.

For example, give a timeframe in which a student is allowed to cancel. Allow a limited number of cancellations per month. Require pre-payments or deposits from new students.

Busy Schedule-

This is basically the disadvantage that comes with any part-time job or activity you will take on while in college. Tutoring will also take up some of your already-limited time, so you might miss on some social life activities in the process.

The good news here is – you are your own boss. How much time you will spend on tutoring will depend on how much you are willing to work and how much you want to earn. If you find an equilibrium with your tutoring work, you can earn a solid income and still get some free time.

You may like to read, How can Teachers improve the Educational Motivation of Students?

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