Ask HN: Making money during college? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Making money during college?

11 pointsquizbiz14 comments

What did you do to bring in some income during college? I plan to take studies seriously but I also need to bring in some cash.

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If you have HTML/CSS and basic website skills you can get a fair amount of money from Craigslist very easily. Additionaly, see if your university web department needs a webmaster, generally they allow you to work from home and the pay is higher than other jobs on campus due to the need for technical skills.

Campus work study when I was still a student, then got hired on by a pair of professors to assist with their research after graduation. It was a wonderful experience -- after the summer they wanted me to come be a grad student in their lab for $20k a year, I sort of had other aspirations in life, we parted ways amicably.

Failing that there is always retail/food service/etc, but working on campus has a lot to recommend it over these other options. It pays better, is more convenient, has more potential to result in something with resume power, etc.

Having a job doing research on campus gives excellent experience and looks great on a resume. It also helps when you need a professor to write a letter of recommendation if they know you outside of the classroom environment. Assuming you are going to a research university, there should be no shortage of opportunities. Your school website should have a list of professors along with what areas they are researching, pick something that sounds like fun and go an ask.

Right now I am employed by University Residences at Western Washington University building web apps while I work towards my degree. UR is only one of many departments that has a need for tech staff, I'm sure there are tons more job openings than you realize. I was offered a job at the Financial Aid office after I made a simple scraper that took their student job openings and made a UI with better usability. This is an example of the Do What You Love (and money will follow later) idea that is spread around here so often.

My advice is to have fun hacking away at as many little projects as possible. Maybe one will get someone else's attention who is in a position to help you out (like what happened with me, but I already am employed by the university). Or maybe you can figure out how to capitalize on one of your little projects. If all else fails you're always building your resume for when you apply around.

TA work: $9/hr for menial labor. Can get you ins with professors for research.

Research: degree of pay varies widely. Our math department offers $12k for a year's worth of undergraduate research. I'd assume yours has something similar.

Private sector: Last I was getting $18/hr for JSP work, but I found the Wash. DC IT scene to be relatively soul-crushing. Also risks interfering with your studies because in most cases it drags you off campus.

If you're really hungry for cash, sell some stuff from home on Amazon.

I got a job with the hospital on campus, doing custom win32 app development. Nothing huge, just business process facilitation with some windows-native glue apps.

Under market consulting rates, above typical college rates, I walked to the office and set my own hours. Everyone wins. It was hard to beat.

Work study job at the school's help desk. Best job ever - tax free and a lot of free time during the job to finish projects.

Also, my dorm room happened to be right next to the building I worked in.

Supervise a computer lab, that was the best gig ever, i made $12 / hour (8 years ago) and could do homework and write code while I was working. It was a lot of fun too.

Check out affiliate marketing, if you're any good at coding, you can make a lot of money(4-5 figures a month) doing affiliate marketing PPC/SEO part time.

there tend to be interesting jobs if you look long enough. Eg I'm doing some computational game theory for a Poli Sci prof part time over the summer and perhaps beyond. Fun stuff

Donate Plasma or Sperm.

tutoring in the computer lab for 159.101 and 102

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