Graduate student establishes online tutoring service

UProdigy aims to serve students with low prices and high quality

By: Melissa Appel

Posted: 2/28/08

UProdigy online tutoring service is designed to make tutors more accessible to the average college undergraduate.

Syed Hussain, a graduate student at Harvard University, began the online program one and a half years ago. He started the program because of his personal experiences as a student, which made him realize the importance of tutors . Now he is on the other side of tutoring.

Hussain was an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan, where he double majored in math and economics. When he enrolled in a class called advanced partial differential equations, Hussain found that he was embarking on what he said was an "absurdly tough class." Hussain and 20 of his classmates routinely spent 6-7 hours in the school library attempting to work and understand the practice problems.

When Hussain and the others did not understand a concept, they searched for professors, or students with a doctorate in mathamatics, for tutoring services. These tutors offered their help, but only at elevated prices of up to $80 per hour. Besides the steep price, Hussain said that the tutors were not always available when he needed help.

Aggie students can easily relate. With the multitude of tutoring services available in varying prices and quality, students have different opinions about which factor is more important. Michelle Dvorik, a senior business management major, used 4.0 & Go and Tutor John. "Even though [Tutor John] was more expensive, I liked the small classes they offered and was willing to pay for it," Dvorik said.

Other students are less willing to pay that extra amount.

"If the tutor was high priced, I would think that they thought they were better than they really are," sophomore agricultural communication and journalism major Casey Wessels said.

"I knew that college students needed some sort of on-demand service where they could come at any time to get help," Hussain said.

Hussain graduated in December 2004 and is studying philosophy of religion at Harvard. Meanwhile, he has initiated his own company, uProdigy.com, with 13 entrepreneurs.

UProdigy is an online tutoring service that offers tutors in math, some sciences, business, economics and essay writing. Students can log onto the site at any time and communicate with any of the 120 tutors by instant message or Skype ViOIP (voice chatting).

The tutors on the site have either a masters or doctorate in their respective areas, and many have teaching experience.

"All of our tutors are vigorously accepted. We subject them to three different interviews and a whole battery of online tests," Hussain said.

Hussain said he is looking for interns and college students are encouraged to apply. Interested applicants can find more information on the website.

UProdigy was launched Feb. 18 and has seen a quick growth of users. Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology tested the service and found it to be very beneficial. On Feb. 11, MIT announced uProdigy as the winner of its prestigious business competition, the MIT $100K ESC.

In order to increase interest in the service, uProdigy offers one free hour of tutoring to all new users until the end of the semester. Any tutoring after the initial trial is $15 per hour.

"My main goal in offering this help was to solve the pain that I felt in undergrad," Hussain said. With the future prospects of uProdigy success, students may be assured that help will always be available for their toughest classes at the university level.