Even if you manage to pay off your tuition in full while in school,
chances are that you’re going to want some extra spending money. This
is going to be especially true if you have not managed to get out of
the red, as is the case with most American college students.
There are plenty of ways to get some extra cash; you just have to be
willing to make your schedule a little more hectic and demanding and
work for that cash.
Working Like A Horse Working Like A Dog
Here are a few ways to earn some extra money during school without trying to fool the Tooth Fairy with white pebbles:
- Get a part-time job. If you go to a college or university,
chances are that you are not in the middle of nowhere. A lot of
universities are located in the middle of big cities like the
University of Chicago, which is right in the heart of the south side of
the greater city. Even if you are not in a teeming metropolis like
Chicago or Boston or Los Angeles, you might be in what is called a
university town, a town that forms around a university. You can try to
get work at one of the local restaurants or bookstores or shopping
centers or fast food restaurants. If you are looking for flexible hours
that will work with your class schedule (which might change semester to
semester) then a job in retail or fast food is a good way to go. In
your junior and senior years of college, don’t just take any job. Try
to get a job in the industry you hope to enter after graduation because
this will provide you with valuable work experience as well as an
excellent bullet point on your resume. Paid internships are
particularly beneficial because you will be placed in a firm in the
industry of your choice and you will learn how to work in that field.
Also, there is a chance that the internship will turn into a full-time
job after you graduate, so long as you prove that you are an asset to
the company and suited for the job in question.
- Work as a waiter or waitress in an actual restaurant as
opposed to a fast food joint. This requires a certain amount of skill
and you most likely will need to be available on nights and weekends.
The good thing for you, though (and the bad thing for the rest of us),
is that twenty-percent tips are the new fifteen-percent tips, and you
have a good chance of pocketing a fair amount of money nightly this
way, particularly if you work in a nice, up-scale restaurant and serve
large parties.
- Become a tutor. If you’re good at English, offer help in
writing papers. (If you haven’t yet enrolled in an Ethics course, you
might offer to write papers instead of just help write papers.) If
you’re good at Chemistry, tutor in that subject. You would be helping
your peers, earning some money, and you would learn your subject of
choice even better from being forced to teach it to someone else. You
could also charge by the hour, and you wouldn’t be charging minimum
wage, either! With this option, you would be your own boss and you
would get to decide how many hours you wanted to work. If you need more
money, you could organize small study groups or offer more hours of
availability; if you found that you were doing all right and didn’t
have an immediate need of funds, you could reduce yours hours and take
it easy for a while. There are several ways to advertise yourself if
you want to be a tutor. You can spread the news by simple word of
mouth. You could stand up and announce it after the first few class
meetings if students feel uncomfortable or embarrassed visiting the
professor or TA for help. You can register with Facebook, create your network, and post news of your availability to the students in your college/university network that way.
- Type papers for students. Though most students know how to
type by now (we are the technological generation, are we not?), there
are plenty who still wish they didn’t have to type theirs on their own.
Offer to save them some time and do it yourself – charge by the page,
not the hour, though. You can advertise this service according to the
same methods as listed above. You can also offer to teach students how
to operate their computers, select a browser application, surf the web,
use various software applications, check email, and so on. Charge by
the hour or by the study session.
- Get a job on campus. Most schools offer on-campus jobs to
their students. Consult your financial aid office or the student
employment office to see what job opportunities are available.
- Perform odd jobs around the neighborhoods. Cut grass,
repair cars, walk dogs, shovel snow, and so on. To advertise, post
signs at public places like the supermarket, library, etc.
- Get work as a babysitter.
- If you are a good writer, visit Craigslist
for freelance work. As a freelance writer, you would be composing
pieces according to contract jobs and sending them in. You could do the
work according to your own preferences and schedule without leaving
your dorm room. This is also a great way to beef up that resume and
have a supply of great writing samples on hand should you want to
pursue work in that industry. By the way, CollegeCodex.com is always looking for promising writers—contact us!
- Visit the CareerCenter on CollegeCodex.com.
Also visit the Career Planning Office at your school to see if there
are any paid internships available, or any internships that might turn
into paid internships or part/full-time jobs.
Picky, Picky, Picky
So you don’t like any of our suggestions? Alright, fine – YOU come up with something!
Strangely enough, we’re not being facetious. If you do not like any of
the suggestions offered here, come up with an alternative that works
for you. Plenty of college students nationwide have displayed their
creativity and turned it into something that helped them rake in some
cash. The wildly popular Facebook.com website was created by two
college students just like you; another unofficial college company that
turned out to be very successful was DorMaid. The concept was simple:
if students needed their dorm rooms cleaned and dusted, they would call
DorMaid and the student-run ‘company’ would send over someone to do it
for a fee. The company was very popular until campus officials shut it
down; following this, DorMaid went underground and continued to
flourish.
So don’t think that you’ve been pigeon-holed as the stereotypical ‘poor
college student’ into one of these career options. If you don’t want to
work retail or fast food or babysit, that is entirely your prerogative.
Think of your skills and your means, be creative and original, and who
knows how it’ll turn out!
And if nothing else works, we did already suggest trying to fool the
Tooth Fairy. We hear her vision’s going in her old age and she’ll
accept pebbles, chips of marble, and partially popped kernels of corn.
Hey, it’s a living.
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