Pros
Flexible hours and the ability to float; easy money working from home. The white-board technology is easy to use and a great tool for tutoring online.
Cons
The web site is not very organized (you get your messages by clicking on 'tools and settings'). It's all one big pimp game. They look for any excuse to fire you. My last month there, I had over a 95% acceptance rating, but the woman who fired me was still referencing mistakes that I made weeks prior to when I thought that it was optional to accept a session. They do not take into account that you fix the mistakes that are pointed out by your mentor. Also, you can make one error, and they will hold it against you. I had 60+ algebra sessions and made ONE mistake in a session and my mentor flagged it and noted it as an area of concern. The ratings system is a joke. I had over 20 straight sessions where I successfully helped the student with their problem, yet none of them took the time to give me the rating that I deserved. They require you to have a rating of 4.2. The problem with that is that if a student feels that you did "Good", they think they are doing you a favor by giving you a '4' which in fact they are not. I finished with a rating of 3.9, which is nowhere close to what it should have been since less than 10% of the students that I helped gave me a rating. You have to know how to work the system in order to get promoted. While you are on probation, do the BARE MINIMUM hours per week. The more sessions you do, the greater the risk you are to get that student that does not have the pre-requisite knowlege; or the risk of the student that wants you to do the work for them and give the answers. If you get either one of these types of students you are screwed. The student without the pre-requisite knowlege will cause you to backtrack in reviewing the basics. When this happens, you get penalized for taking too long. I had one student in stats who could not do simple algebra. There is no way that anyone would have thought to ask the student if they knew how to do simple division, yet I was flagged for using an ineffective approach. Mentors like using that one; never mind the fact that a student that cannot even divide has no business being in a STATS class. The student that wants you to do the work for them is a no-win situation. If you don't do the work for them, they give you a rating of '1'. If you do the work for them, even if they give you a '5', your mentor will flag you for giving answers. There is no way out of this. Don't get me started on the students that log in to sessions and don't even have a book.
