One thing that you will always remember from your college days, is that one professor or that one class, where you really struggled. That is not to say, you did not actually try to stay focused in class, do the homework regularly, or actually study, but sadly, the class material did not click in your brain. However, you are not alone in this struggle. We all have been through it. Luckily, I had the opportunity to meet with Christina Lopez. Christina, also goes by Christy, works at Clutch Prep and is the Director of People Operations. If you did not know what Clutch Prep is, do not fear. Clutch Prep, Christy, and I here to make your college life a lot easier. Clutch Prep is an online video tutoring service that is textbook-specific for college students. For this article, I had a fabulous time interviewing Christy. While a majority of the time we laughed, at the end of the interview, I had a better understanding on Clutch Prep and what it can offer to students.
Sonya: What is Clutch Prep?
Christy: Clutch Prep is an online video tutoring service that is based on your classroom textbook. They design concepts videos to help you further understand topics in your classes. The videos are more in depth than what your professor would get into in the classroom. The team at Clutch Prep creates a video playlist in which, videos are broken down into topics to help you better understand the subject. Not only do they have videos but Clutch Prep provides practice problems, exam reviews specific to each chapter, and then a final exam review catered to your actual exam. You are probably thinking, “how do they know what is going to be on my exam?” Clutch Prep and their team have, collected and reviewed previous exam reviews and exams from that specific class. One of the many benefits of Clutch Prep is that, their tutors were in your shoes once before. They were once students at FIU and took the same classes as you. In some cases, the tutors probably had the same professors as you. Therefore, they are very knowledgeable about the classes you are taking. Along with tutors being knowledgeable about the classes you are taking, Clutch Prep has a unique feature where they have your exam dates and the topics that your exam will cover. They also know the professor you are taking because once you sign up for Clutch Prep, they ask to see your class syllabus. Once you upload the syllabus, the team goes over and reviews the syllabus. Another advantage of using Clutch Prep is that, they have tutors that can answer your questions within a 24 hours response time. Along with, textbook solutions from the back of your textbook.
Sonya: Can you tell us a bit more about the background and history of Clutch Prep? How did the company start?
Christy: Clutch Prep started in 2010 at Florida International University (FIU). They started off having tutors on campus but eventually, bought an office space on 8th street in 2011. It was in that same office space where tutors would teach students in smaller classroom setups. It got to a point where these classrooms would reach maximum capacity. In hopes of scaling their reach, they decided to participate in TechStar’s 2014 summer cohort where they learned from some of the most successful business owners. They were 1 of 10 companies that were able to pitch their product to investors and ended up placing second place. In that same year, Clutch launched nationally. What originally started off as a free product has eventually grown into a paid subscription service granting students unlimited access for one or multiple courses. In order to make their product different from other online tutoring companies, they started building textbook-specific exam reviews. Over time, exam reviews have become the most custom element of their product. They’ve compiled years of student-submitted material to provide exam reviews that cater to each student for their respective course. This is what sets Clutch Prep apart from the others.
Sonya: How does Clutch Prep work?
Christy: It all depends on the students. There are multiple ways for a student to use Clutch Prep. There are students who, sign up for Clutch Prep to study for their exams. These students use the exam reviews Clutch Prep provided. Whereas, other students use the videos and practice questions to fully better understand the class materials. When it comes to signing up, it is super easy. All you need is your email, create a password, and add your phone number. The phone number is used to send text message to students to remind them to study for their upcoming exam. Once students are signed up, students enter their dashboard. It is at the dashboard, where students have their chapters available for their course. Not only that but the dashboard keeps track of the student’s progress in the course. After you login, the system will ask for your class syllabus. The Clutch Prep team reviews it and submits the exam dates on the database. Those exam dates eventually show up on your dashboard. Once you upload the syllabus, there are exam reviews. Another neat feature of Clutch Prep is that, you can print out the worksheet that correlates to the video they are watching. While you are watching the video, you can do the problems on the worksheet along with your tutor. Within a specific chapter, there are chapter problems.
Sonya: What makes Clutch Prep different from the rest of their competitors such as Khan Academy and YouTube?
Christy: It is all about relevancy. The biggest difference between Clutch Prep and other tutoring services is that Clutch Prep caters to you and your respective needs. They cater to the classes you are taking and take time to go over what you need in order to be successful in your specific class. They have done the research and reviewed previous exams from your class to get a better understanding. They have multiple videos and problems under each chapter to help you better understand the material. The tutors at Clutch Prep explain each chapter, the way that your professor wants you to understand it. Instead of tutors focusing on a broad topic, they go in depth by reviewing each chapter from the textbook.
Sonya: You have been working at Clutch Prep for sometime now, what do you love the most about the company?
Christy: The thing that I love the most about Clutch Prep is the fulfillment in helping students. I know at the end of the day, I am helping students succeed in their classes. It is that same driving force that makes me work harder. It is those small moments where I used to table at universities and students would come up to me, thanking me that Clutch Prep helped them pass a class. Another favorite moment of mine working with the company is when, a student of Clutch Prep emailed me saying thank you for helping them get into medical school.
Sonya: Is there anything the company is working on for the future? Are they going to expand the curriculum?
Christy: The plan is to definitely expand the curriculum. We want to cater more to business students. Right now we offer accounting but we want to do more of the business classes that students are taking. As well as, expand on our pre-medical classes. Thus far, Clutch Prep offers the basic lower division pre-medical subjects. However, Clutch Prep wants to develop material for students who are taking their second or third division classes in the pre-medical track. Another thing Clutch Prep is working on is creating videos for nursing students. Since nursing and pre-medical students have to take different classes, they are required to learn different information. Therefore, it would be beneficial for Clutch Prep to create those videos for nursing majors. One of the long term goals for Clutch Prep is to eventually dabble into high school students taking AP classes. Since these high school students are already taking college accredited classes, the material is not hard to create.
In all, I fell in love with Clutch Prep. I fell in love with the idea of how personalized and specialized this online tutoring service is. Even though, Clutch Prep started national in 2014, they have over 500,000 accounts, over 800,000 hours of watched videos, and over 2,300 active students. Try it out. It is completely free to sign up. It is another resource you have, in order to get better grades and fully understand concepts that your professor are going over in class.