At my university, I work as a tutor for several subjects. Over the course of my time working as a tutor, it has caused me immense amounts of stress, as I continuously tell myself that my work isn’t good enough and I consistently blame myself for lessons that are below my standards even if in reality they are fine.
I am well respected in the tutoring center, but I don’t respect my own work. I always feel like I could do something better and tend to be really overwhelmed and over prepare for my sessions. Recently, I didn’t even do homework and skipped class because of this stress.
I want to quit tutoring, but my goal was also to be a teacher in the future. If I quit tutoring, I’m scared I won’t make it as a good teacher. I don’t know what I would do otherwise. Tutors usually quit at the end of each semester, but I’m feeling like I need to step back because the stress is too much for me, though I realize I should probably stay until a replacement is found. What do I do? Would my students, professors, and other faculty that depend on me understand?
I think you need a therapist who will do CBT and ERP with you. You need specific techniques for anxiety/perfectionism. You don’t need talk therapy for this - you should be receiving evidence-based treatment.
By the way, I would never expect a college tutor to prepare anything. I would expect them to know the material and be responsive when a student comes in to request help.
Overcoming perfectionist tendencies is a part of healthy maturation. Stated otherwise, perfectionism is a sign of disorder combined with a lack of maturity in one’s life.
Even though your devotion to your students is admirable, you will be harming yourself if you continue to obsess over your tutoring duties.
I cannot give you the advice that you are seeking. Maturing is a process that involves growing pains.
It is obvious to me that you have disorder or chaos in your life (might be from being raised in a dysfunctional setting like a household led by one suffering from alcoholism. Adult children of alcoholics, for example, assume all responsibility & take the weight of the world on their shoulders which further exacerbates perfectionist tendencies.) Perfectionism is the desire to have order in at least one part of one’s life. Maybe this resonates with you–and maybe it doesn’t.
I wish you well. You are doing the right thing by speaking with a properly licensed therapist.
Thank you all for these insights. I’m seeing a therapist who is doing CBT with me and we are beginning to try new strategies. I am so anxious because I can’t fathom the thought of my sessions being less than perfect or not knowing the answer every time.
I feel like taking a step back would allow me to breathe, get caught up in my classes, and let me regain passion for my field and my pursuits.
However, I have to ask some more questions: I’ve always wanted to be a professor in the long run, will grad schools look negatively on me quitting this position? What about schools that I apply to teach at?
I’m also wondering if I should leave teaching behind altogether and do something else entirely. I don’t have any other interests. What do I do?
I am assuming that this is just working with a few students? What will you do as a full professor, with a junior status, who needs to teach to a full classroom of students throughout the day?
My daughter was an engineering tutor. The students came to her with the week’s lectures and she reviewed the concepts that were the focus of the professors’ lectures. She directed students to the supplemental texts, where extra information could be garnered. She didn’t really prepare anything other than knowing the syllabus well, as well as the subject matter. They asked about specific problem sets and she would then guide and walk them through to the right formulas for answers.
The students did the work, she wasn’t supposed to do more work. The students were supposed to do their “due diligence” on problem sets.
A tutor should be well versed in the subject matter, NOT PeRFECT. They should feel very comfortable with the subject.
If there was an issue with a particular lecture idea, our daughter would advise the professor and he would address the issue in class, because if one person had a concern that wasn’t clear, then she knew that the rest of the students were experiencing the the same questions.
I taught groups of high school students.
You have to be comfortable with, sometimes, not having a good or specific answer. When I didn’t have a direct answer, I would tell the students: “You know what, that is an extremely good question and I think there are several ways to get at those solutions. Let me get back to you all tomorrow, and if my research and consults take me longer, I will email you all to let you know. Sound fair?”
Please continue with counseling. Teaching is difficult enough without feeling overwhelmed. I don’t know if your future involves teaching, but you need to find out why you put so much pressure on yourself to be perfect. It is a tutoring job and should not require inordinate amounts of hours of preparation.
I am glad that you are in therapy, as I also agree that there is some kind of anxiety related issue happening (I am not a therapist).
My daughter was/is a perfectionist but has learned how to control it. She tutored in college and was also an SI (supplemental instructor). She never prepared for tutoring; she knew the material and helped her students with what they needed. She did prepare for her SI work, but it was never anything that she found difficult, very time consuming, or stressful.
You need to get a handle on this, and if it means leaving the tutoring center while you work on your mental health, then that is the right decision for you.
I do not know what your grad school plans are, but in my opinion schools will not dismiss your application solely because you left a tutoring job during college. The only way that might happen is if tutoring is a requirement for the program. Remember, you can always go back to tutoring once your mental health improves. There is no rush, even if you take time after graduation to strengthen your application (very common).
I am confused about your concerns regarding schools that you want to teach in, and whether they will care that you gave up tutoring. Are you an education major who is planning to teach after college graduation? Will you be student teaching? Schools that you may teach at 5+ years from now will not care that you gave up tutoring.
What should you do right now? You work on your mental health and do not think about grad school.
I was going to quit today, but the conversation I had with my boss was in an open space, so ultimately I didn’t do this.
I’m going to just keep doing the job - I can finish at the end of the semester. I want to quit now, because of all of these feelings, but maybe I’ll learn something by continuing on.
I think you need to step back from tutoring for a bit. I am sure you would be welcomed back.
You can practice the conversation about resigning or taking a break for the rest of the semester with your therapist, a professor, or someone in the career center.
No one wants to lose a great employee, but your supervisor will be ok with it and will want the best for you.
Maybe you can find a job on campus that is not so academically focused that may just bring you some peace and a little fun.
While I am very glad that you are in therapy for this issue, you have to recognize that your first responsibility now (other than your health) is your college education. The stress of tutoring is affecting your ability to go to classes and do your work, so for now, I would say take a leave of absence from the tutoring job. Don’t quit. You may want to go back someday. Explain that you’re overwhelmed with schoolwork and that you need to take a leave.
I already work at the school library 15 hours a week on top of my 8 or 9 hours of tutoring, so finding another job wouldn’t be an issue - I am already employed in two places.
This is the decision I really want to take, but I realize that in doing so, my students lose out on this service or my boss has to find a replacement quick. I don’t want to put my professionalism on the line.
I think it’s time you take a break from the source of your stress.
I’m a teacher and have taught all age groups from Kindergarten to graduate school. The one sentence that caught my attention is “I am so anxious because I can’t fathom the thought of my sessions being less than perfect or not knowing the answer every time”. I want to remind you that a teacher, especially teacher to older students, is NOT one to have all the answers. To teach is to assist students in learning, not to feed information to students. Teachers don’t have to have all the answers. We DO need to know multiple ways to find the answers, which in my opinion is harder than knowing the answers.
Tutoring students is different than teaching K-12 or college classes. Students go to tutors expecting to complete an assignment to a satisfactory level in a short period of time, which is a small part of their learning.
This will take a lot of thought. I’m the only tutor for my subject and leaving would not only disservice the tutoring center, but at least 10 students. Additionally, I’m involved in other roles as well within the center, so it will take some time to process all the pros and cons. This weekend, though, I’ll work on getting caught back up in my coursework.
In the meantime, can you cut back on your library hours so you have more time for your own academics? Or is the library job one that lets you study while you’re there?
I was a Math tutor in the learning center. Students were struggling in different classes. Nobody expected me to remember everything and there was no way I could predict what would be the question for the day. In some situations we were looking together through course and textbook material to figure out solution and it took some time. We always were able to solve the problem was it a function for mathematical software for the project or some differential equation. Students were always greatful.
I can study at the library. The library does not give me any stress at all.
But I can definitely say that these feelings of perfectionism within my tutoring role have been causing issues since last April and that’s really what’s getting in the way: consistently worrying, preparing, obsessing, etc. It also followed me abroad this summer and it makes me also wonder whether I should change my career path or major - I don’t want it to be like this for the next 40 years. Though, I have no idea what I’d do if I weren’t doing secondary education or college teaching.
I will look and see how the next week goes before making any big decisions.