Meet the American uni students making £500 a week tutoring from their sofa
They literally don’t have to leave their room to make it rain
Student jobs – a necessary evil. Of course your loan has been an arid, desolate wasteland of nothingness a week after it splashed into your bank account, so you’ve had no choice but to consider a whole plethora of options: food delivery on a bike? Too cold. SU Bar? Please, no. Promoter? I’m excluding myself from this narrative.
What if we told you that you could make some serious bank without having to leave the comfort of your own home? Hard to believe, we know, but honestly, it’s the truth.
These American students are spending some of their downtime tutoring people online and are raking in the pounds – well dollars. Plus, they are actually helping people, which is only a good thing. Get inspired, because you could be doing it too.
Alex, senior (final year), DePaul University – makes up to £560 ($700) a week
So how did you find out about TutorMe?
I actually saw a posting on DePaul’s online job board and I applied just figuring, hey, this is something that I would be good at. I enjoy teaching – I was a peer tutor at DePaul for my first three years and tutored undergraduates in English and writing, but have been doing this for the past year.
What do you like about working for TutorMe?
It’s honestly just so convenient. The site is an ‘on-demand’ service, which is really cool. When I was working for the peer tutoring centre I’d get emails all the time asking, “Hey, are you available next Wednesday at 5pm?” You’d then have the hassle of having to schedule the session and you’d actually have to walk all the way to the tutoring centre, so sometimes when it’s 10pm and it’s the middle of winter of Chicago, I mean, you can understand why that doesn’t sound appealing.
Online tutoring is great because, well, firstly the students I teach – be them high school age or college students like me – are getting help there and then. At the same time, I can work from the comfort of my dorm room or apartment, I really don’t have to go anywhere.
So you could actually tutor from your bed if you wanted?
Ha, essentially yes.
Online tutoring is the perfect student job: you don’t have to leave your room, you make great money and you’re helping people
Apply to TutorMe now
What else about TutorMe works for you?
Well, as a screenwriting major, I’m not necessarily on a clear career path after school. With what I’m doing you kind of have to make your own way, which can be a pro or a con depending on how you look at it. I’m still working on the plan after college but I haven’t really figured it out just yet.
This is why TutorMe is so great – it’s given me this great safety net. Steady work, a steady pay cheque and doing something I enjoy, all while figuring the rest of my life out.
Let’s get down to brass tacks – how much are you earning a week?
Well, I’m earning double of what I was making as a peer tutor, which was just about minimum wage. With TutorMe, I earn $20 an hour, which is just crazy.
I’m still in school so obviously I have to prioritise that, but if I try to do a couple of hours a night during the week and some time at the weekend, I could probably earn $250 to $500 a week.
A week?! $500 a week?!
I know, it’s insane. It really depends on the ebb and flow of students too. For example, during the first week of the semester students don’t have a ton of work so it will be lower earnings there, but in peak season I’m usually doing $500. I think the most I made is $700 in a week. It’s a pretty decent living considering I don’t have to leave my room if I don’t want to.
Want to be earning good money without having to leave your house?
Apply to be a TutorMe tutor here
Myles, junior (third year), Duke University – makes up to £240 ($300) a week
Have you had other student jobs before working for TutorMe?
I’ve worked in the admissions office, but it’s kind of hard to fit your classes around it, especially when you have to factor in getting to the office. It was interesting at times giving tours, but it does get pretty mundane doing the same thing everyday.
TutorMe on the other hand really challenges your mind. I’m kind of a bookworm – I study Political Science, I like books and being on my computer, so this is perfect. It’s so much easier to jump on your laptop and you actually exercise your brain.
Duke’s a pretty tough university – does your work with TutorMe interfere with your other studies?
It’s just on the side to be honest. What’s great is that it is so flexible – I like that I can work whenever I want. There are times when I’m not even looking to work but I have my status set as available, so I’ll just have a notification pop up that someone would like a lesson with me and just like that I’ll accept and we’re in a lesson. Sometimes it can be ten minutes, other times it I could be in a lesson for two hours.
What kind of tutoring do you offer?
I specialise in the ACT, which is a standardised test high school students take in order for universities to evaluate them as candidates. I do have reoccurring clients, but for the most part, the majority of my students jump on TutorMe for a one-off thing and usually say, “I have really been trying to get this for the past hour, I’ve been trying to Google it, I still can’t get my head around it, can you help?” This keeps things pretty interesting – I like the challenge.
Go on, tell us, how much money are you making?
I probably do about 12 hours a week, so about $240 to $250 a week – and I don’t have to leave my apartment either. It’s a pretty sweet set up really.
TutorMe, the revolutionary, online education platform that has taken the US by storm, has landed in the UK.
The online tutoring service is available on-demand and enables thousands of students worldwide to get the help they need.
You don’t need to be a qualified teacher to be a tutor – as long as you have a passion to share your knowledge, it doesn’t matter if you’re still at uni.