Panic stricken – the” exam to end all exams” is in a few days and the texts are still in their plastic wrapping. What is a stressed, caffeine-filled student to do? The creators of “i-Tutor” hope you’ll come to them.
Their website allows users who register as “Tutees” to view profiles and send messages to other users who have registered as “Tutors.” From there it is up to either individual to set up sessions as needed. After the lessons, tutees can rate their .
Upon searching i-Tutor for help with Chinese, a five-star tutor named “Raymond” shows up. The fourth-year University of Waterloo student has been registered on the site for the last three months and has tutored 15 people thus far. Charging $18 per hour, Raymond Ng isn’t registered on i-Tutor just for the money.
“Helping people can help you improve on what you learned before,” said Ng, who was a private tutor before signing up for the site.
Tutees first contact Ng via a message box in his profile which starts the communication process through email. Later, the process moves onto phone conversations in which Ng can get a bearing on each individual’s unique needs.
I-Tutor is also structured to allow virtually any student to become a tutor – after submitting resumes and references which are followed up upon by i-Tutor’s staff.
Several distinctions set this website apart from similar ones which offer tutoring services, said Ehsan Sarrafian, the founder and president of i-Tutor.
Tutors can be rated on the website and seen through their profile – which also includes their areas of expertise and pay scales they set themselves. This allows for more than just academic criteria to vouch for a tutor.
“Just because a person is smart, doesn’t make them a good teacher,” said Sarrafian.
Though sly tutors can easily get friends to give them a generous rating or even rate themselves, i-Tutor assures that there is a set of checks to control this type of deviousness.
Another distinction is that tutors will not be cut out of their own profits since i-Tutor does not charge them anything to be registered as a tutor. In cutting out the middle-man, Sarrafian points out that the fees for tutors won’t reflect tutors trying to reclaim money they would have otherwise been obliged to pay.
Yet the site is responsible for more than just providing a cost-free method for tutees and tutors to connect. Five young entrepreneurs are also acquiring unique experiences.
“All of us are in different years, we specialize in different things, and we all have our strengths…and we realize we have to diffuse our strengths through one and another to help [i-Tutor] grow,” Sarrafian said. “One common mistake that young people may make is trying to do something individually.”
Along with learning the value of working as a team, the fourth-year Waterloo Computer Science and Business student also believes that the group has learned communication, organization, and presentation skills as well – skills that other university students may not develop in the same way.
“A lot of people get this disillusionment when they get to university; they learn so much, but they never see the applied side of it,” said Vlad Popescu, a third-year Political Science student at U of T and the Marketing Strategist and Legal Advisor for i-Tutor.
Sarrafian says i-Tutor’s development reflects their own team – which includes three other students from U of T and Waterloo: Mehrdad Biglari, Rahim Sajoo, and Reza Ketabi.
“We believe it’s limitless, that the possibilities, the direction we can take it, there’s always just so much to do, he said.”
Future plans for i-Tutor continue to be thought up and implemented, though Sarrafian said they have reached a milestone.
“It’s one thing to come up with an idea, but it’s another to put the energy in it and drive it to the finish line.”
