FAQs

What do tutors do?

The main role of a tutor is to help the girls with the workshop material for the day, attending from 9:30am through to 4pm on the day of the workshop. Workshops are held every school term.

You’ll be helping the girls involves finding syntax errors, helping to piece together pieces of code and general computer help. You'll also have the chance to give mini lectures, help run computer science based games, and welcome girls to the workshop.

Lots of our tutors love coming to GPN because it’s a fantastic chance to work on your leadership, communication, public speaking and even programming skills. It’s also a fantastic way to mentor the next generation of programmers and network with other awesome tutors!

How much time do I need to commit to being a tutor?

You can commit as much or as little time as you are comfortable with. If you can't attend for the whole workshop day? No problem, just stay as long as you can. If you have to miss a term or 2 that’s perfectly fine too!

If you're super keen and want to help EVEN MORE, you can do that as well! An immense amount of preparation goes on behind-the-scenes at GPN: website maintenance, content preparation, blogging, photography, catering organisation. If you'd like to help with these or other tasks, feel free to mention it when you sign up as a tutor.

Do I need to be female?

GPN aims to support gender groups underrepresented in tech, including all women, trans men, and non-binary people. If you're in one or more of those groups, be sure to apply as a tutor! If you aren't and still want to help make sure to tell your friends that are in those groups to come along and support them to support us.

Where are the workshops held?

We have locations all around Australia! Follow this link to find your nearest GPN Node!

What do I need to know to tutor?

Our workshops are primarily Python-based, occasionally branching out into Javascript and other languages. We mainly teach the basic concepts like strings, lists, loops, if statements and dictionaries.

If you want to learn Python to prepare for the workshops, we can help you! Just mention it when you sign up.

I’m really nervous. I’d like to tutor but I don’t think I’ll do a good job

It's okay! We were nervous when we started, too. Many of us have gradually gained confidence in tutoring over time. For example, here's one tutor's progression, starting from their very first workshop:

1. Attends the workshop as a tutor, but is too scared to actually talk to any students. Sits in a corner to do the workshop content, attempting to hide so that no one asks them questions.

2. The tutor gathers enough courage to talk to one student, then two more. Over the next three workshops, they find themselves able to help more and more students.

3. Decides to present a lecture for the first time. Practices for a week in advance in order to feel ready. Asks a fellow tutor to shadow them in case there's a problem. The lecture goes fine and is well-received.

4. The tutor starts to regularly volunteer to present lectures as well as helping students. Over time, they find they don't need to prepare so much to feel ready.

5. Continues to gain confidence, even starts presenting multiple lectures per workshop, sometimes with live coding demos.

6. The tutor finds themselves enjoying tutoring so much that they start volunteering to help prepare the workshop content.

7. The tutor eventually volunteers to be a Room Coordinator (running an entire room of students). They ask a senior tutor to shadow them once again, just in case. The day goes fine, and the senior tutor assists when necessary.

8. At the next workshop, the tutor acts as a Room Coordinator again, this time without help. The day is a success.

So: If you want to be a tutor but you're nervous, we've all been there - and we're all here to help you.