Going to university is a great experience for all kinds of reasons. The number one leading factor is that you get an advanced education on any kind of subject that you want. You’re also going to be surrounded by fellow students of your age, all in the same boat together. Getting to know one another and building up friendships is another reason why going to university is an amazing thing to do in your life. These are the people you’ll learn to debate with, express your ideas and thoughts to and learn from each other. As your progress in university, you’ll be more knowledgeable about your subject and become comfortable with teaching younger students. A typical course might take 3 to 4 years, and in that time you can set up a business to help students that come after you. You could be in the 3rd year and your knowledge could help a student in their 1st or 2nd year who is struggling to understand the subject you’re both doing. However, you’re in a dorm room or in a shared house which means you only have a garage to set up in. That should not stop you, as setting up a tutoring business is much easier than you might think.
Set up a study
Before anything can go ahead in your business, you need to make sure there is a semi-professional setting for yourself to work in. it’s one thing to sit at your desk like you normally do, and another to change the surroundings to fit your tutoring mentality. For example, you’re probably doing your own work, research and doing coursework. Therefore your desk is probably littered with notes, books, articles, journals and lots of pens, pencils and markers to say the least. Regardless of whether or not you’re going to be tutoring somebody online or in person, you should set aside the things you need to hold your classes. You may need to tutor multiple people at once and have notes ready for each student as they might very well be at different stages of their understanding.
Very simply, put all your books, notes, equipment such as hard drives, and diagrams aside into an area that is free in your room. When you are tutoring, you need to clear your desk, then take those folders, files and other things relevant to the students who have hired you onto the desk. This might mean you have to buy a completely new laptop of some kind that only has your tutoring guides, notes and case studies on. New notebooks and academic books will also need to be bought and brought out when you are having a class. Don’t doubt that you also might just need a large desk or hold your classes somewhere in your dorm or garage where you have room to multitask.
Online tutoring requirements
Modern campuses have thousands and thousands of students. So it’s not uncommon for campuses to be spread out across hundreds of meters. It’s not bizarre for a campus to be spread out over 1-kilometer either since some universities are incredibly large. Therefore you can’t expect students to have enough time to always commute to you and arrive in-person to be tutored by you. Therefore have an e-conference kind of service or capability would be excellent.
Before you decide on the kind of conference or online video chat software you would like to use, you need to be able to handle multiple students at one time. So having super-fast WiFi internet such as provided by a company like Suddenlink.com is of the utmost importance. It’s imperative to have fast and reliable internet for a number of reasons. For one, you will be allocating time slots to your students, so any time wasted on technical difficulties will damage your relationship with them professionally. Even if you are imparting good knowledge and your teaching techniques are good, if 15 minutes of a 1-hour slot is wasted on not being able to hear or see each other because the internet is freezing or slow, that student may leave you for another tutor instead. It’s recommended to get an internet service that offers 1GB internet speed.
Conferencing software
Obviously when you’re in your dorm room, you can’t have multiple students going in and out of the room while others are also trying to study. It’s going to become an annoyance that won’t sustain your friendship with your roommates so it’s best to just do your tutoring online for the most part. Some people do learn better in person but for this you can book special time slots when you know the dorm is empty. A basic way to communicate via video link is using free software that is open to everyone. This could be easier for your students also as they won’t want to spend money on buying a video conference software.
The first and most widely used kinds of websites are Google Hangouts, Facebook Live, and Skype. Hangouts is an easy way to communicate with your students as all that is required is a Gmail account, which most people have anyway. Nothing has to be downloaded, it’s simply able to be used in the Google Chrome web browser and others also. Facebook Live is another good way to livestream using your phone or webcam but the picture quality isn’t as good usually. It’s not a website that specializes in video chat but it’s certainly handy when you’re away from your dorm or computer. Skype is another well-known website which you can use free of charge but you might need to download the software to stop the stuttering that happens when you’re just using the service straight from online.
A tutoring business can be very easy to set up. Most of the time the service you provide will live and die on the quality of your teachings. However, you do need to have a clear desk for yourself to be able to keep track of what you’re teaching and to who. Fast internet is definitely something you should be investing in so you’re never going to be encountering technical difficulties because you don’t have the speed or bandwidth to handle multiple clients.
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