How to Get a Part-Time NEET UG Biology Teaching Job on EdTech To Cover Med School Living Costs
The coffee in my plastic cafeteria cup was lukewarm last Tuesday when I refreshed my bank app for the third time that hour. I’d just paid my monthly hostel fee and bought a replacement diaphragm for my stethoscope, and what was left would barely cover my train ticket home for Diwali, let alone the sterile gloves and labelled slides I need for my weekly practical classes. I’m in my second year of med school, and I know NEET UG biology inside out— I scored 360/360 on it on my own attempt just two years ago. A handful of seniors had already told me part-time teaching on edtech was a flexible way to earn extra, but I’d spent a week sending out applications and gotten nothing but automated rejection emails. I had no clue what I was doing wrong.
I caught up with Riya, a third-year who’d been teaching biology on two different edtech platforms for a year, after anatomy lecture that Friday. She was carrying her dog-eared copy of Gray’s Anatomy, and agreed to split a plate of pani puri with me outside the admin block. When I showed her my application profile, she laughed and pointed out the first mistake I’d made. I’d just written “MBBS student, available to teach NEET biology” and uploaded a copy of my NEET scorecard. That’s generic, she said. Platforms get hundreds of applications that say exactly that. You need to tell them exactly what you can offer that no one else can.
Riya explained that as a recent test-taker, my biggest advantage isn’t just that I know biology—it’s that I remember exactly what it feels like to study for NEET, what topics trip people up, and how the exam pattern has changed recently. Most older teachers haven’t taken the test themselves in decades, so they can’t speak to that. Instead of marketing myself as a general biology teacher, I should pick a specific niche that aspirants actually need. For example, a lot of senior teachers skip line-by-line NCERT revision, but every NEET aspirant knows 95% of questions come straight from NCERT. Or you could focus only on mnemonics for physiology, or tricky botany concepts that everyone gets wrong.
That was simple enough. I reworked my profile to say “Recent NEET top scorer, specialized in NCERT line-by-line botany revision for aspirants targeting 350+ in biology.” Next, Riya said I needed a short sample lecture to attach to my application. It doesn’t need to be fancy, she said—just 5 to 10 minutes of you explaining one common tricky question. I recorded mine on my old laptop, sitting on my hostel bed, using a free whiteboard app I downloaded in five minutes. I didn’t even edit out the part where I coughed halfway through explaining C3 vs C4 plants. It didn’t need to be perfect, it just needed to show I could explain a concept clearly, not just that I knew the answer.
Then came the next mistake I’d made: I’d only applied to the two biggest edtech platforms that everyone knows. Riya said those big platforms get thousands of applications from new teachers, and they usually prioritize established teachers with a existing following over new part-time people. Instead, I should search for mid-sized edtech companies that focus only on NEET UG preparation. Those platforms are usually growing, so they’re always looking for new teachers, and they’re far more open to part-time work that fits around a med school schedule.
I made a list of 7 such platforms, updated my application with the new profile and sample lecture, and sent it out. Within a week, I got demo requests from two of them. I messed up the first demo a little— I tried to sound super formal, like a college professor lecturing to a hall of students. After I finished, the content lead on the call told me straight that I knew the material, but I was holding back. “Students don’t want a textbook with a pulse,” she said. “They want someone who remembers what it was like to mix up C3 and C4 plants, like you did when you were studying. Admit that you got that same question wrong on your first mock test. It makes you relatable.”
I adjusted that for the second demo, and got the job a week later. It’s part-time: two 1-hour doubt clearing sessions a week, and one 2-hour revision class on the first Sunday of every month. The pay is fixed, not commission-based, which works perfectly for me because I know exactly how much I’ll get every month, enough to cover my mess bill, extra hostel charges, and travel home. I do my classes after 6 pm, once my daily lectures and practicals are done. I just move my stack of anatomy textbooks off my desk, prop up my phone, and use a small $10 whiteboard I bought from the local stationery shop. I don’t need a fancy home studio or any expensive equipment, just a quiet room—if my roommate is staying in, I book the empty common room on my floor for an hour, which the hostel allows for free.
The biggest practical tip I can pass on, from what I’ve learned these past three months, is to ask for fixed monthly pay instead of commission when you’re starting out. If you just need consistent money to cover living costs, commission-based work where you only get paid if students sign up for your course is too unpredictable. Most mid-sized platforms need people to handle doubt sessions and revision classes, which pay a fixed monthly amount, and don’t require you to spend hours marketing yourself to get students.
It’s not all smooth. Last month I had to reschedule my entire week of classes because I had a surprise series of practical assessments, and the platform was fine with it as long as I gave them 48 hours notice. Some months I pick up an extra one-off doubt session if I need extra money for new textbooks or a new pair of sneakers. I don’t know if I’ll keep doing it next year, when my course load gets heavier and I start studying for my university finals. But right now, it works. I don’t have to ask my parents for extra money every time an unexpected expense comes up, and I get to teach something I know well, around my own studies. It’s not a big career move, just a way to pay my bills, and that’s exactly what I needed.
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