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This is part of a monthly series about side gigs—nurses with interesting side jobs or hobbies. This month, we spotlight a nurse who is also a TEAS and NCLEX tutor.


When Alaina Ross, RN, BSN, was first out of nursing school, she was in her first nursing position, but had a lot of student loans to pay off. Ross, who currently works for Dignity Health in Sacramento, CA and also has 10 years of experience as a PACU nurse, decided to begin working as a tutor for the TEAS and NCLEX tests. She also is a tutor and expert contributor for Test Prep Insight .

Ross took time to answer our questions about her side gig of tutoring for TEAS and NCLEX.

Alaina Ross, RN, BSN

How did you get interested in doing tutoring for TEAS and NCLEX?  

I started tutoring nursing students for the TEAS and NCLEX. The TEAS (Test of Essential Academic Skills) is the standardized, multiple-choice exam that you generally have to take when applying to nursing school. It is meant to test basic academic skills that you will need in nursing school. The NCLEX, on the other hand, is the exam you take as you exit nursing school to get licensed as a nurse. It is meant to test your competency as a working nurse.

I had performed extremely well on both exams before and after nursing school, so I figured I could help other nursing students and make some money along the way.

How do you get connecting with people who need this kind of tutoring? How many students do you tend to tutor during a specific time period? How does the tutoring work? Do you tutor them via email, phone, Zoom?

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In terms of how it works, students generally sign up with the tutoring company—which they usually find online—and we get connected through this middleman. Then once we are connected, I usually meet with students once to twice per week over Zoom while they are studying. This is one of the best parts of technology today; I can now tutor students all over the country, and I am not limited to just tutoring students in my area.

My preferred style of tutoring is to start each session by answering any lingering questions or concerns they have. They always have a handful of questions or issues they want to discuss, and we usually spend the first 10-15 minutes covering those. I try to be as efficient as possible with that portion of our time to make sure we get to other items. We then review a practice exam they take prior to the session and walk through all the wrong answer choices together. I cover the reason they got it wrong, what the right answer choice was, and the underlying concept. Then we usually wrap up by giving a little assigned work before the next session and signing off. On average, I tutor 4-5 students per week, for a total of around 7-8 one-hour sessions.  

If nurses are interested in getting involved in this kind of work, what would you suggest they do? What kind of fee can they expect to make for each person they tutor?    

If you’re interested in tutoring nursing students, just Google “TEAS tutoring” or “NCLEX tutoring,” and you’ll see a bunch of companies that provide this service. Email them and ask if they are hiring tutors, or check their job postings board. They are almost always hiring. Expect to make around $20-35/hr depending on your experience, which company you work for, and where you live.  

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Why do you enjoy doing this kind of tutoring? What do you get out of it beside the money?

I love, love, love working with nursing students. They are so bright-eyed and eager to start helping people. It reminds me of why I got into nursing. Nursing students are positive and energetic, and I feed off of that. It actually inspires me to be a better nurse when I’m not tutoring.

Is there anything else important for our readers to know?

If you want to tutor on either these nursing exams, you have to really have a solid grasp of the material being tested. Students will pepper you with all kinds of questions and you need to be able to answer almost tall of them without hesitation. So if you yourself struggled with the TEAS or NCLEX, this may not be the best side hustle. That’s not to say you can’t do it, but you have to feel confident teaching the material.

Michele Wojciechowski
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