I write this at the ripe age of 25 years. I hated going to school, and then was persuaded to do college. My aversion to education was that I was a poor grade student, weak in math and in sciences, especially with those long symbols for chemicals and the math that was involved in working out the chemistry equation, and how chemical reactions took place. My parents organized a tutor for me. Half the time he would not appear, and half the time I would disappear because there was a rugby match on, and I wanted to be seen as "hey, Buddy" look who’s here. The second half was more the reason for the failing of my tuition classes.

It was one of those days that I got a tongue lashing – you see I am too old for being beaten up! Morosely, I went through the motions of dinner and my father went through the motions of giving me a lecture on how important was education. It did not enter his head that I could not understand, and while I had a burning desire to learn, the match between the tutor and me was a no-go.

So on it went day after day, week by week, and years rolled by. I too realized that it was important for me to learn the fundamentals of all subjects, so that I could be the jack of all trades, and master of none. While surfing on the internet I joined a group of people on chat, which was discussing how math was a bore, and how some of the boys just like me had found it made interesting, and easy to learn, and how some had gone from D grade to A grade. That’s interesting I thought. I asked them about where they found such a tutor and they gave me a site www.transwebtutors.com.

When I went to the site, it offered a chance to try it for free once. On that site I could not believe it that I could submit some questions on theorems or calculus which I did not understand, and found that this teacher, whom I shall call Sharma, an Indian, in an online classroom, took me step by step through the process of unraveling the mysteries of math and calculus. It appeared that this Mr. Sharma was a teacher at transwebtutors.com, and he was using his time off and of course the night in giving tuitions on the internet at particular times.

I then tried a similar tutor for Chemistry there, for though I was not good at the subject, I liked the subject. This time, too, within a few days, a lot of nonsense was beginning to make sense. Indeed the site was such that you could practically find every subject covered in the syllabus had a tutor who specialized in it!

Of course it was not free. You had to pay up, and it sounded pretty cheap to me, because for these two subjects I was spending only $ 20 or so per hour (per subject), to catch up. My tutor at home was charging $ 50 for an hour!

I used my pocket money for the tuitions, and one day the school results were out. I looked at the math and the Chemistry grades, and I let out a whoop! I had made to the top of the grade. When I showed to my parents, they could not believe it. They thought I had fudged it. It was then I broke the secret that I was holding close to my chest. I told them about the online tuition I had been taking, and how I was paying for it from my pocket money.

I was not believed, frankly. I then made them sit with me in my study, and I went online. My father, who thinks, and is, a cat in Math, posed some questions to the tutor at the other end. Pat! Came the reply; you are not what you claim to be: you are a much higher studied student of Math, and not the Patrick I knew who was poor in math! Boy, my father was taken aback. Still the tutor gave him the full resolution, step by step, of the problem, and how the answer could be arrived at!

From that day onwards, my parents never once berated me or treated me like a necessary leper of the household. What made all this possible were my enthusiastic teachers at transwebtutors.com. Using the reach of the internet, and the PC to PC communication, they taught long distance their own specialized subjects. This was done via using even an electronic blackboard, and if someone had doubts, all doubts could be posted on the board, and an online tutor would explain the basics to the final solution to the problem.

Since there is a time difference between India and the rest of Europe (4.30 hours), and US (about 10.30 to 1200 hours), you could also post your problem on the website, and by the time you got up, the tutor had already looked at the board, and given out the answers. Some thought, okay, my homework is done; yes, it was. But for people like me, the tutors help came in helping to understand and then solve the problems.

Here are some websites that can help you, if you want:

http://www.transwebtutors.com,

http://www.transtutors.com