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Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring

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Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring

#31
> but very expensive e.g. $100/hour

Yeah getting specialized human help that is worth while for anything is expensive. I tried to being a tutor/mentor on some site, forgot off the top of my head. I'm pretty sure in and out or target pays more.

100/hr seems right to charge. Probably still not even enough. If you break it down, you spend a ton of time unpaid doing prep and searching for clients, the work it self is inconsistent, you pay taxes.

It also felt like a race to bottom on prices, where I think 3rd world country people were working as tutors.

I also just got asked to answer homework questions for cheap.

Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring

#32
I wish you luck in your endeavors!

I am a math professor, and FYI your (1)-(3) are not common practice in math departments which I've seen. Math professors and TAs are generally happy to encourage students to learn on their own. As for administrators, if they tried to impose (1)-(3), then at most US research universities they'd get the raspberry.

Of course, MIT might be special -- it sounds like a ton of students show up to office hours, and I can understand how MIT's math department might want to manage their TAs' workload. Unfortunately, the TAs are there to do research, and they are not required or expected to go the extra mile in teaching. Wanting a long one-on-one session after each lecture... yeah, unfortunately no TA is going to see that as their job, and any TA who does will get behind on their research and burn out quickly.

You probably know this already, but MIT is highly atypical. Depending on what your target market is, I'd research what is going on at state universities. Google "student success in calculus" to get a sense of some of the ongoing discussion. If possible, find a professor or TA at such a university, and offer to take them lunch somewhere nice if they'll talk about their experience in teaching service classes.

A lot of universities want to do better in this regard, especially at the "service course" level, e.g. calculus and below. And there is lots of money out there, although university budgets are weird and the politics are byzantine, which means that your efforts would need to line up with some administrator's agenda to get a piece of it. Good luck.

Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring

#33
Are you trying to create a tutoring version of fiverr/upwork? If so, the economics doesn't seem to work.

I think you are saying that you'll create a product, charge $10/wk to customers and, through volume, give the tutor approx. $100/hr. Fair enough, but I think you're overestimating how well tutoring scales - which is not well at all.

If I'm a tutor, and I want to break even with my in-person rate, I need to satisfy the needs of 10x the people. That's A LOT of psets. If they have the same problems, i.e. they're in the same class, then they won't need separate accounts because they'll share screens. If they don't care about watching others, they'll watch YouTube. If you allow a large class to interrupt to ask questions, this will have to be managed carefully so the session doesn't grind to a halt after 2 questions.

I strongly suspect people will unsub after 1 session because they paid $10 to watch another guy get tutoring. Then again, I'm from the US, so maybe that's just here.

Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring

#34
post #23

I am 53 and cramming while relearning linear algebra, statistics, and calculus, after a 30 year break from college, in preparation for my first semester at GA Tech's online MS CS program in the fall. I love this! But...before I check it out, I'm going to be surprised if it competes with the already-incredible free help i've gotten from chatgpt-3.5. Recently I asked it the following (where it made a mistake that confu…

Why a MS after 30 years? No negativity meant, just curious

I'm 42 and I'd be up for doing something like this. I wasn't interested in the maths side of my CS degree when I was 18, but I now am.

Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring

#35
post #4

Re: incentives being weird in higher education: we once overheard the director of the CS department respond to complaints about the program not being a good fit for industry by saying, "our job is to create researchers." I recall something like 7% of students going on into research, meaning that they weren't even trying to meet the needs of 93% of their students.

Since when did we start making the assumption that university is supposed to be vocational?

When they started teaching mechanical engineering, not just physics. And chemical engineering, not just chemistry.

They need to start teaching software engineering, not just computer science. And 93% of their CS students need to switch.

Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring

#36
post #23

I am 53 and cramming while relearning linear algebra, statistics, and calculus, after a 30 year break from college, in preparation for my first semester at GA Tech's online MS CS program in the fall. I love this! But...before I check it out, I'm going to be surprised if it competes with the already-incredible free help i've gotten from chatgpt-3.5. Recently I asked it the following (where it made a mistake that confu…

Why a MS after 30 years? No negativity meant, just curious

totally valid question. tbh, i think i need my head examined :-)

the main points here are:

1) i've been pulling things out of DBs and putting them on web pages for 30 years, and along comes these breakthroughs in AI which...my apologies to the naysayers...i'm just blown away by what i'm witnessing, and i just _must_ learn more about how this works.

2) discovering the OMSCS program was an a-ha moment for me: it's prestigious, inexpensive, and I don't have to jump through a lot of hoops (GRE) to enroll. It only cost me 3) There's no pressure on me to complete the program. I can do it one course at a time, and as long as i'm getting something out of it, i will continue. Each class is...$600-$700 or something like that. I fully am ok w/ stopping if it takes too much of a personal / marital toll on me.

4) My imposter syndrome is pretty terrible right now...part of me wants to know if i've 'still got it' (i did really well at U of MD CS).

5) I loved the Rodney Dangerfield movie "Back to School" :-)

EDIT: 6) Also i wouldn't mind converting to the MLE role at some point.

EDIT 2: I blame Paolo Perrotta for writing such an inspiring book (https://www.progml.com/) that ruined my cruise in september (kept rereading the book at the pool) and starting me on this path ;-)

Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring

#38
post #23

I am 53 and cramming while relearning linear algebra, statistics, and calculus, after a 30 year break from college, in preparation for my first semester at GA Tech's online MS CS program in the fall. I love this! But...before I check it out, I'm going to be surprised if it competes with the already-incredible free help i've gotten from chatgpt-3.5. Recently I asked it the following (where it made a mistake that confu…

As a counterpoint I've been studying for leisure by doing exercises in math textbooks, and with advanced undergrad/grad topics my experience with ChatGPT and Gemini is that they fail miserably where they try basic proof techniques that they think work but don't. Trying to marshal their help is a puzzle in figuring out where they made leaps in logic, pointing those out, to exhaustion until they acknowledge their lack…

yeah my approach so far has been: try 3.5 until i am disappointed in the results (hasn't failed me yet), once it does, pay for the upgraded version and see how that goes (totally will to, but 3.5 has really been great so far, and i was blown away when i asked about 1 equation that didn't seem right, and it did realize it's mistake and corrected it...i don't know...just seems more than adequate so far. i realize it's not perfect...i just haven't been let down sufficiently yet).

Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring

#39
Well done on launching.

1. The price should better highlighted on the website, it's not very visible. 2. How do you even sign up to the plan? Add a pricing/purchase page. 3. $10/week is dirt cheap 4. If you're serious about this, please invest in better UX/UI

Re: Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring

#40
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why a MS after 30 years? No negativity meant, just curious

totally valid question. tbh, i think i need my head examined :-) the main points here are: 1) i've been pulling things out of DBs and putting them on web pages for 30 years, and along comes these breakthroughs in AI which...my apologies to the naysayers...i'm just blown away by what i'm witnessing, and i just _must_ learn more about how this works. 2) discovering the OMSCS program was an a-ha moment for me: it's pres…

You still have it, you chose learning.
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