Anyone know? One of the servers at my local watering hole found out I’m a former math teacher and asked me to tutor her in calculus this fall. I haven’t a clue what to charge her. The last time I tutored people on a paid basis was 1993, and I charged $15 an hour. But at that time I was just a grad student who happened to be good at explaining things. Since then I’ve had a 5-year run as a faculty member in a major university’s math department, including two semesters instructing the very calculus class my server plans to take – and I had a reputation for drawing success out of math-phobic students. So I feel completely justified charging a premium rate for my services. And if nothing else, inflation would dictate than I charge more than I charged eleven years ago.
So if anyone reading this has paid for a math tutor recently, I’d appreciate it if you’d e-mail me and let me know what you paid, as well as the level of experience your tutor had. Meanwhile, I guess I’ll call a few tutoring services, pretend to be a student and find out what they charge.
Hmmm…sometime I should do a journal entry on the tutoring business I ran in 1992-93 as a grad student, and the paper-typing business I ran at Rhodes as an undergrad. Those were my first two attempts at self-employment, and a lot of the lessons I learned are still relevant today.
But right now, it’s getting late, so I think I’ll take a walk around downtown and then get to bed.