Our Philosophy and Vision
Troy Tutors takes a unique approach to tutoring, which has helped hundreds of students succeed in the courses they were originally struggling in, as well as helped students who may simply want a one-on-one environment when it comes to preparing for exams or seeking help when stuck on a project or assignment. We have helped students, who were on the verge of failing out of their university, who are now interning and working at companies like NASA and Microsoft, making breakthrough research contributions in their respective fields, and have moved onto excellent graduate school programs. We also work with students who want to simply check in, to improve their understanding of what is being covered their courses. In the following sections, you'll learn more about our philosophy and vision behind Troy Tutors.
Top 5 Things that Make Troy Tutors Different and Successful
Why Get Private Tutoring?
There are many reasons students seek private, one-on-one tutoring. Let’s say you are taking a course where the TA and mentoring team are understaffed. This happens very often with challenging courses, where the professor, department, or university may perhaps underestimate the demand for public office hours in the course, or cannot find enough TAs or mentors to provide extra help for students. It is not uncommon to attend office hours, and never get support during the whole scheduled event, because there are so many students there who need help. On top of this, because of the significant demand, your time with a TA or mentor is often limited to 5-15 minutes. You may need to wait in a very long office hour queue, and finally when they get to you, you only have a small amount of time to receive help, before having to go through this waiting process all over again. Troy Tutors allows you to skip the office hours lines.
Other students may feel more comfortable receiving help in a private setting. It can be stressful and uncomfortable for many students to seek help in a public setting. Perhaps they are looking for a judgement-free zone to ask questions. A common phenomenon in engineering culture can sometimes lead to TAs and mentors being critical of students for not knowing something or asking a certain question. This should never be the reason for students not to seek help and Troy Tutors offers a safe place to ask these questions.
Sometimes a student may miss a lecture. Maybe the student was at a job interview across the country, had to prioritize another project or assignment deadline, or something similar, and now, as a result, is behind in his or her course. Students in this scenario meet with Troy Tutors to catch up, after falling behind.
Other times, students may be working with or learning from a professor, TA, or mentor who simply is not the best at explaining topics. For example, if you are attending a research university, many of the professors could be there for the research, not the courses they lecture. This can often lead to intelligent professors, who could either not be great at explaining things or not have interest in prioritizing their lectures. All tutors on Troy Tutors have to prove their ability to explain very complex topics in very simple ways to understand. It is one of the most important factors we consider during the Troy Tutors interview process.
Greetings from the Founder
I’m Zack! I founded Troy Tutors. Many of the problems discussed above were things I witnessed or learned about tutoring when I was a student at RPI. When I first joined RPI freshman year, I was originally behind, in terms of what my classmates already knew. Very often, I had professors who skipped foundational topics during class. They would ask students to raise their hand if they already learned this back in high school, and if the majority of students raised their hand, the professor would skip this topic. Mainly, because I went to the second-lowest ranked high school in my state, I was initially in a situation where I needed extra help.
My first solution was to attend office hours, and while I was able to work with some great professors and TAs during my time at RPI, I very often saw the same problems discussed above. Due to the expansion of the university, to coincide with the new summer program, enrollment increased, but not in proportion to the faculty to student ratio. This resulted in many situations where I was unable to receive help during office hours, due to the demand of help needed by students, yet the lack of supply of availability from TAs and mentors.
I looked into all the popular tutoring platforms, though I would run into the same problems discussed above with traditional tutoring platforms. It was impossible to often find an online tutor who was qualified to tutor in the topics I needed help with. Many of the leading platforms can cost more than triple the price of Troy Tutors, and very often, you will be matched with a tutor who ends up not being qualified to tutor you. You may not even learn that until multiple sessions into tutoring. Eventually, you might be able to find a tutor, but halfway into the semester, you will reach a point where the tutor can no longer help. That is why Troy Tutors is university-specific and sessions are booked by the course, not the topic. In the end, being involved in academic research and a fraternity allowed me to learn from students, who went to the same university I did, who also took the same courses I was currently taking, in a one-on-one environment, for as long as I needed.
RPI was an incredible experience for me and I want it to be an incredible experience for you, as well. I greatly wish Troy Tutors was there when I was a student, though am happy other students have been able to receive help at Troy Tutors and go on to do great things. Today, I am still very involved in Troy Tutors. I hold many of the one-on-one sessions, live lectures, tech talks, and office hour sessions, along with the operations and growth of Troy Tutors. Currently, I am a software engineer, one of the first 15 engineers, at a successful startup where we are making breakthrough innovations with blockchain, machine learning, big data, and problems related to the environment and climate change. Outside of my full-time job and Troy Tutors, I also own a university platform for professionals looking to make a career change into software engineering.
Tutoring is something I’ve always enjoyed doing. I have been tutoring for over a decade. We have a great team here to help you. We have a large variety of courses for you to get help in. We offer many different services for you to receive help. We have a great relationship and work closely with RPI. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us. I am happy to answer any questions you may have at (518) 323 – 7018 or zack@troytutors.com. Otherwise, you’ll likely see me in Troy, NY holding a lot of the fun events we have to promote Troy Tutors. Wishing you the best during your university years and long after.
Zack Nawrocki
Founder of Troy Tutors