Why this exists
Two conversations in the same month. One about what tutoring costs, one with my sister. The second turned out to be the answer to the first.
Who is making these
I am a master's student at EPFL. I did the bachelor here with excellent results, and I have spent a lot of semesters as a teaching assistant since. That last part matters more than the marks: being a TA is hundreds of hours of watching where people get stuck, and it is almost never the hard part of the course. It is one definition that went past too fast in week three, with everything after it landing on top.
The two conversations
The first was with friends, about what help costs. Some platforms, and tutors doing a master's or a PhD, ask around 70 francs an hour. A one-day online crash course at UNIL, for HEC, runs 200. The student who needs that help is usually also the one who cannot casually spend 200 francs.
The second was with my younger sister, who had just started at EPFL and had skipped a lecture. I explained it in under ten minutes, and she did the whole exercise sheet having never seen the class. A week later she came back asking for two more courses.
So this is the experiment
Ten minutes on video instead of an hour of someone's time, and free, because the students who need it most are exactly the ones who cannot spend 200 francs. The same explanation, available at 2am, and repeatable — which the version where I sit down next to you is not. If enough people find it useful and a few chip in to keep it online, even better; nobody has to.
I only cover courses I am genuinely comfortable with and that most sections take. Not everyone needs it in the same way: if your grades are already good, this is more of a convenience than a rescue, and if you find the videos too fast, they work better as revision once you are more or less comfortable with the material than as a first encounter with it.
What happens next depends on you
This is a first test, not a finished product. First-year courses for now, and if it turns out to be useful, the next step is BA2, BA3 and BA4.
If it is not useful, I would rather find that out now from twenty people than in a year from nobody. The feedback form under each video is where that goes: which explanations landed, which were too fast, and which course you wish existed.
Try one before you believe any of this
Every video is free. Watch one, then go and look at the exercise sheet, which is the only test that counts.