Meet our tutors: Michael Print

We sat down with Michael Print, one of our tutors, to find out why he loves tutoring and to gather some advice for pupils preparing for their online lessons.

Michael has been tutoring for 2 and a half years on MyTutor, in Maths, Computer Science and Python.

1. Why did you decide to become a MyTutor tutor?

I was looking for part-time jobs during the height of Covid at the start of 2021, so there weren't many jobs around as nothing was open. However, I found a few sites advertising for online tutors and MyTutor was one of them. I didn't have much experience tutoring at the time, but I liked the idea of doing a job that would reinforce the knowledge I had gained at GCSE and A Level, whilst also developing new skills and helping students succeed. It’s great being able to teach students something I’m really passionate about. In particular, I really enjoy teaching students coding for the first time. It’s remarkable how quickly students are able to go from no experience to being able to work on their own projects. It’s really fulfilling to see how with a bit of help they’ve found something that they really enjoy and want to learn more about. 

2. What's the best part of being a tutor? 

When students acknowledge the difference you've made to them. I've had a few students that were working at U or E grades at A level that have gone up to A grades. For example, I had a year 12 student that got Es in his Maths and Computer Science AS Levels and was facing having to resit the year if he did not improve in his resits. We had a lot of lessons over about a month before his resits and thankfully he improved significantly, so was able to continue onto year 13. I continued tutoring him during year 13 and by the time his exams came around he was targeting A grades. Seeing the difference in his confidence and outlook on the subject makes you realise just how meaningful being a tutor can be and how much 1 to 1 tutoring can help students who are struggling. 

3. What advice would you give to pupils about to start their tuition lessons?

Try to help the tutor know what you need help with. If you go into a lesson saying I need help with this topic, maybe because you've been struggling with some questions from that topic for the last few days, that can be really helpful. Instead of the tutor having to take a few lessons to assess your knowledge and then recommend topics to look at, you can jump straight into the questions you are struggling with and make really quick progress. 

4. How do you prepare for your lessons?

Most of my lessons revolve around exam questions, so before a lesson I will search for questions on a particular topic that a student is struggling with. I will choose the best questions for that student and then we will go through them during the lesson. The main aim of my lessons is to increase a student’s familiarity with exam questions, so they feel more confident and assured of how to answer specific types of questions. Therefore, I make sure we cover different topics each lesson to try to cover as many areas as possible, so there is nothing that the student feels unprepared for in the exam. 

5. What are your plans (if you have them formed!) for after university?

I am going to work for Barclays on their Tech graduate scheme. Tutoring has really helped me in the application process for getting onto the graduate scheme at Barclays, particularly in the interview stage. Tutoring has vastly improved my communication skills, as I have had to improve how I break down and explain concepts in simple terms that are easy to understand. Also, I feel I can cope more easily with being ‘put on the spot’, as I have to be adaptable if a student decides on the day that they want to practice questions for a different topic to the one I had prepared. All these skills helped when answering questions in interviews, and I also have lots of experiences in tutoring to talk about to demonstrate these skills.