The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of The Prowler.

The school days go by so quickly. As students, we are shuffled in and out of classes every hour and hopefully can focus for a few minutes, long enough to hear a few pearls of wisdom the teacher desperately wants to impart. Of course, at the end of each class comes every student’s worst nightmare: homework.

Homework isn’t all bad. If we need to practice the material a few more times to truly grasp the lesson, homework creates that opportunity. If we already fully understand the material, we should breeze through the assignment. But what about the other five or six or seven classes we have? Or what about the extracurricular activities and sports and college applications? With so many other seemingly “mindless” tasks to accomplish, it might seem easier to set aside an assignment or two and hand them off to another person. This is where your tutor swoops in to save the day.

Tutors can be used for good and for bad, but occasionally the scope of their job can take away from their purpose in the first place.

I have used a tutor for as long as I can remember. As a weaker student in math, I always supplemented my time in class by reviewing and studying with a tutor once a week or before a big exam. But that is all. That is the entirety of his function. That was the extent of the job my tutor performed. He would meet with me, explain the confusing material, give me some extra practice, and tell me I would be fine before heading out the door to his next client. I never even thought about a whole other side. I thought this is what everyone did.

When my friends would tell me they were going to meet with their tutors after school, I never understood just how significant their tutors were to their academic success. According to my friends, they could drop off their materials and the tutor would return back to them their completed assignment, ready to turn in. Sometimes they would drop off a book to the tutor the night before and pick up their neatly typed, polished essay the next morning.

I remember hearing a story from one of my family friends who told me about a party she went to in New York. She told me about this huge penthouse on the Upper East Side known for its wealth, and the only thing she could wonder is what the host did for a living. As it turns out, she was a tutor whose clients paid her extraordinary amounts of money per year to complete every assignment on behalf of her  students.

For so many students, this is their secret to seemingly perfect grades. The issue with this phenomenon is it can only remain a facade for so long. Students can only hide behind the work of their tutors until they are left on their own

 A tutor who completes a student’s work does not only negatively impact the student in the long run, but also affects the other students in the class who are doing all their own work. While they will be more successful in the long run, students without tutors are not getting the instant gratification they may want.