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For University of Canterbury students in Christchurch
No browsing tutor profiles, lesson packages or scheduling calls. Find your course and send an online request when it has tutor coverage. An eligible peer can claim it when available.
Free to join. $30 covers the first 20 minutes; extra billable minutes are $1.50 each.
Not at UC? Request your university.
Why we built this
It is late, your test is tomorrow, and you have been staring at one practice question for forty minutes. You do not need a course and you do not need a weekly tutor. You need twenty minutes with someone who gets it. Here is what people reach for instead, and where each one leaves them.
For a covered paper, Lighthouse lets you ask for focused help without booking a weekly lesson.
How it works
Pick your course and roughly how long you might need (20 minutes or more). Online help is available; in-person requests are temporarily paused.
It goes to tutors who have already aced that exact course, best rated first. The first to claim it is yours.
Meet on video, get unstuck, rate your tutor. No subscription, and money you paid in and have not spent can go back to your card.
Your request goes out to the tutors who can answer it. You are not picking a tutor off a list and hoping they reply. The first eligible tutor who claims it is yours, and if nobody is online we tell you rather than leaving you waiting.
For students
You get a peer who sat your exact course and came out with an A-, A or A+. They know the lecturer, the notation and which part of the question everybody gets wrong, because they got it wrong first.
Create a student account$30 covers the first 20 minutes. No subscription.
Find your UC courseFirst-year commerce
Explore the five compulsory first-year BCom papers and ACCT103. Each page explains how to request online help or become a tutor for that paper. Requests open once enough grade-verified tutors are available.
Read the first-year commerce tutoring guideFor tutors
At least $45 an hour
The same rate at twenty minutes as at a full hour, so a short session is always worth taking. Take it as Lighthouse credit instead and it is worth half as much again.
Start tutoringExplore paid UC tutoring workFor parents
Sending someone off to university means handing over most of the ways you used to help. A parent account gives you one back: you fund the wallet, they get the help, and you can see that it happened.
Create a parent accountBuilt to be trusted
Every tutor proved an A- or better in your exact course before they could ever help with it.
Tutors are approved for the papers they teach. New tutors have their UC transcript results confirmed. Everyone must be 18 or over.
Once a session starts, the student can end it at any time, and either side can report one.
Lighthouse is for practice and understanding. Tutors are not permitted to complete work that is being assessed, both sides agree to that before every session, and either side can report a session from the session screen.
Common questions
Another University of Canterbury student who has already passed your exact course with an A-, A or A+. We check that against their transcript before they can help with it, so nobody can offer help in a course they have not aced themselves.
The first 20 billable minutes cost $30, even if you end earlier. After that, each additional whole billable minute costs $1.50. The length you choose when requesting help is an estimate, not a cutoff: you can keep going while your wallet can fund the lesson. We show your funded time and warn you when it is running low. You top up a wallet rather than paying per session. There is no subscription or lesson package.
It depends on who is online. Your request goes to the tutors who are grade-verified in that course, best rated first, and the first one to claim it is yours. There is no browsing profiles and no waiting for someone to reply to a message.
It expires on its own and you are not charged. Money is only held once a tutor claims, and only taken once a session runs, or if you do not turn up to a session a tutor accepted, when the 20 minute minimum is charged.
Online sessions are available through a video call with a shared whiteboard, so you can put a practice question in front of your tutor. In-person requests are temporarily paused.
Yes, if your paper has enough approved tutors and one is available when you request help. Lighthouse sessions are online, so you can join from Christchurch or elsewhere in New Zealand. In-person requests are temporarily paused.
If you are a UC student aged 18 or over and earned an A-, A or A+ in a paper, you can apply to tutor that same paper. Your result must be verified before you can accept requests. You choose when to be available and are paid for completed sessions; requests and earnings are not guaranteed.
Yes. Anything sitting in your wallet that you have not spent can be refunded to the card that paid it, and only the person who paid can ask for it. That means a parent who funded an account gets the refund, not the student. Credit a tutor earned, or a balance we added, cannot be refunded, because no card paid for it, but it can still be spent on sessions.
No, and we take that seriously enough to build it into the product. Tutoring here is for understanding and practice, never for completing work that is being assessed. Both sides agree to that at signup and again at the start of every session, and either side can report a session from the session screen.
University of Canterbury students aged 18 or over, and their parents (also 18 or over). New tutors may use any login email, but must upload a UC transcript and have their course results confirmed before tutoring. One account can be a student and a tutor at once, though you can never be matched to your own request.
Yes. A parent can link to a student account and fund its wallet. The student can spend it on sessions, and only the parent can ask for whatever is left back, because it is refunded to the card the parent used.
University of Canterbury students, 18 and over.