Author: Linni Kral
Think back to the dog days of high school. Between mundane labs and tedious worksheets, did you ever feel so bored you wanted to drop out?
That’s what Sean McCleese, class of ’05 did. McCleese enrolled at Occidental at age 16, after realizing that high school just wasn’t his thing. So he came to Oxy.
“I finished ninth grade and felt that high school was boring and not where I wanted to be,” McCleese said. He and his parents researched other possibilities, meanwhile enrolling him at California State University in Los Angeles to earn credit at an institution near his hometown of Altadena. “Eventually, I met with the dean at Oxy and the next thing I knew, I was accepted, at age 16, and trying to figure out my major,” he said.
McCleese’s experiences as a Physics major at Oxy led him to start an online tutoring company called Student of Fortune, a website where students and tutors alike can post and respond to homework problems and questions in subjects ranging from math and science to English. McCleese said the idea came to him during a particularly rough homework set assigned to his Quantum Physics course at Occidental.
“I needed help with a single problem and did not need an hour of tutoring,” McCleese said. “I was surprised that there were no forums to discuss academic topics that would allow a person to monetize on their academic strengths to help a person in need.”
After graduation, McCleese teamed up with his friend Nikhil Sreenath, Chief Technology Officer of SoF, to research online tutorial applications. They couldn’t find any service offering answers to students on a per-question basis, a service in which they felt many students would be very interested. They began designing, developing and programming SoF immediately and it was off the ground before McCleese’s post-graduation jobs had even started.
“My plan senior year was to work a bit in the industry and then pursue a graduate program,” he said. “After graduation, I began working on SoF before working at a nearby aerospace company. SoF launched just before my first day of work [at that company].”
That company was Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), who offered McCleese a full-time job straight out of college and have kept him on staff ever since. McCleese now works at JPL as a lead software developer, lives in Eagle Rock and spends about 40 hours a week working on SoF, which is based out of Altadena.
SoF’s business model seeks to serve both students and tutors who do not have time for formal tutoring sessions. Tutors can answer a question posted to the site’s “virtual marketplace” without having to be online at the same time as the person asking the question. Tutors set the price for their answers and students can pick answers based on how much they want to pay. Anyone can get involved, on either end of the business.
“Tutors can share their knowledge with someone in need and earn extra money without having to lock in specific hours of their time or commute to a meeting place,” McCleese said. The idea for this business model came from McCleese’s friends at Oxy, many of whom were on full scholarship and struggled to go to school full time and maintain a steady job.
“The beauty of SoF is each tutor can control how much time they would like to dedicate to helping students out on the site,” McCleese said.
Ultimately, McCleese wants to continue seeing more growth in terms of students and tutors using the site, and would also like to give something back to his alma mater in the form of opportunities to work with the thriving company located nearby in Pasadena.
“We do not have any Oxy students involved,” he said. “We would jump at the opportunity to provide internships to them.”McCleese has fond memories of the five years he spent at Oxy, two of which were deciding a major and the final three to complete the Physics program. He attributes these memories to the small community and the relationships he built with teachers.
“I really liked the advisor assigned to me, Professor Schram in the Physics department,” McCleese said. “I also appreciated Professor Walt Richmond in the Russian department. He left an impression on me that almost lead me to minor in Russian.”
“I remember him as one of my best students in every class he took,” Richmond said. “He was confident and well-prepared at all times. I had many conversations with him outside class and found him to be polite, interesting, and very inquisitive and imaginative.”
This confidence and imagination drove him to start the Film Club during his junior year. Aside from dating, McCleese said the social aspect of school wasn’t as difficult for him as one would expect with the age difference. He fit in well. He cites academics as the most troublesome part of enrolling in college early.
“My professors thought it was odd that I was asking some of the most basic questions that would have seemed common sense to a physics student at my level. I had to sort of self-teach myself,” he said.
“I think as long as you concentrate on the work itself, you can do a lot of things,” current Physics major Isaac Cohen (junior) said. “We have tons of time in college. If you are not worried about social education, then the work load is really not that bad.”
Not all students share this confidence, however. “I would have been completely overwhelmed,” Dillon Tucker (sophomore) said. “I feel like kids should be kids when they have the chance and shouldn’t grow up too fast.”
Whether or not McCleese was forced to grow up too fast, his current success is undeniable. Student of Fortune is a great financial success.
“SoF is more profitable and successful than we had hoped for,” he said. “We’re happy and surprised.” McCleese was unable to provide information on Oxy students using the cite, as they do not keep personal records of those who use the site.
“I wouldn’t use the service but it seems like a decent idea,” Tucker said. “People who want to be tutored probably would rather not leave their home to do so.”
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