Pros
-Flexibility of the hours -Get to work with a lot of different students (PLENTY of students who need help, especially on Sunday nights) -Don't have to continue working with the same students over and over again -Get to schedule hours to work -Get to "float" for extra hours when you're not scheduled to work -Have a very in-depth manual to help prepare you for the job -Mentors are very helpful and are great go-to sources when you're trying to acclimate yourself to the classroom -Decent pay and great incentives -Classroom is simple to use and effective I enjoy this job. I make enough money every month to pay my car note and car insurance. I could undoubtedly make much more than that, but due to time limitations and other responsibilities in my life, I'm restricted by how much time I can dedicate to tutoring. You can make however much you want to make. Set yourself a feasible goal (let's say, $700/month), and then schedule the maximum amount of hours allotted for a week, pick up other tutors' dropped hours when they let them go, and "float" as much as possible. -It's very fulfilling to read the positive reviews that content students leave you -Upper management is very supportive and understanding. I've gotten in trouble countless times for a variety of things (missing scheduled hours, having too many crashed sessions, not clarifying the question enough, rejecting too many assignments, missing too many assignments while marked "available," etc.). Despite being in trouble quite a few times, I did not get fired. I received warnings and even a phone call, but thankfully, they were willing to work with me (probably because I get so many great reviews from happy students.)
Cons
-Often difficult to schedule hours that you actually want because they get taken so quickly. Also, they cap you at 6 hours a week (5 if you're probationary). This means you can only schedule up to 6 hours a week (but you can float however much you want). On Saturdays, whatever hours are left on the schedule, anyone can schedule more hours past their "caps." The problem here is the only times available are usually at 2, 3, and 4 o'clock in the morning--the absolute worst times to tutor for the average individual. -Classroom tends to crash too often for my liking in the middle of a tutoring session, which can be very frustrating for both you and the student. They are very confidential about what information can be shared, so if something goes wrong in the middle of the classroom, often time you and the student will lose whatever you've been working on. In the event that you don't lose the changes to the file, you can't send it to the student. You can only send it to support and hope that they are able to match it to the student. -Other sites make way more money. For example, instaEDU starts you off with $20/hr as oppose to Tutor.com's $11.50/hr. The con to this is that while instaEDU pays more, you can barely pick up a lesson to save your life! Tutor.com, however, has an almost endless flow of lessons available. So you do the math--$20/hr for 1 lesson a day at instaEDU (if you're lucky), or $12.50/hr for 5 lessons a day at Tutor.com. -As others have stated, some students are rude and very unpleasant to work with. (Even with the worst students, I've never gotten a bad review, though). It's all about how you handle rude, difficult students. Stay positive, avoid the urge to catch an attitude back at them, avoid the urge to press "end session," use lots of happy face emoticons and often say things like, "I apologize for having such a hard time understanding what you're asking me. So let me get this right. You want..." -When you log in, you have to be available for both live and asynchronous sessions. Sometimes, the business of your life might make you only available for an asynch session, but there's no option to toggle on or off live sessions. I feel like this is very unfortunate.
