I do not believe I have met anyone who is as passionate about tutoring as Carson Krol (ND ‘23). Carson has tutored just about any subject you can think of: global studies, physics, and Spanish to name a few. In addition to tutoring individual subjects, Carson also has experience tutoring students who are preparing for the SAT and ACT. Carson’s company, Golden Dome Tutors, provides online tutoring services exclusively by Notre Dame students for high school students studying for college entrance exams.
While Carson knew he had an entrepreneurial itch and was actively seeking out colleges where he would have access to entrepreneurial opportunities, he had never had a concrete idea for a business until now, and unlike the traditional computer science entrepreneur, his solution was not an app. “I was always a tutor in high school. I came here and saw so many smart and talented people around me. I wanted to be able to bring that and share with other people, and because we do online tutoring we can reach across the country.” Early on in the fall semester, Carson signed up to pitch what was just an idea at that point during the IDEA Center’s 60-second pitch event. By the end of the semester, Carson had officially submitted his idea to the IDEA Center student pipeline, was assigned a venture coach, and had successfully pitched during Friday Pitches. Just recently Carson launched a full website and appointment booking service for Golden Dome Tutors using the funding he received from the IDEA Center.
I asked Carson what makes Golden Dome Tutors distinct from other tutoring services - his response was two-fold: “there is no company out there that puts faces behind the company. You know you’re getting Notre Dame kids [and it’s a] positive and trusting brand. Additionally, where you might otherwise get a tutor who is a PhD student, we are peers with the kids we are tutoring.”
Carson may have conjured up this side business with the intention of creating job opportunities for himself and his peers, but this company is more than a tutoring service. He delivers on the promise of offering high-caliber tutoring guided by his own principles of teaching and the company’s tutoring philosophy which he explains: “I’m not doing the problem for them, but guiding them through the problem. We go through a problem set together and then I let them do it on their own.” With this vision of empowering high school students all over the U.S. to succeed in standardized testing, Carson has managed to turn his love for tutoring into a brand which can be shared by tutor and student alike.