Why You Must Make Money as a College Student

Making money as a college student is crucial, here’s why – College is the time to find yourself, discover the world, and decide who you will be in it. Regardless of your parents’ financial situation, whether you have a scholarship or not, whether you have time or not, an essential element of education is discovering life’s important truths and making your own conclusions about how you will relate to them.

Getting a job is an opportunity to educate yourself about the role, value, and limits of money. About why it is hard to make and easy to lose, why it is necessary for all the good and all the bad in the world, what it can and cannot buy and why it is not to be disrespected. Managing a budget is a lesson in planning, allocating resources, and finding the essential link between enjoyment and creativity. Constraints such as budgets, as stressful as they might be, are also beautiful because they force us to be creative. Our best selves come out when we are being creative. The willingness to fail is perhaps one of the most important gifts we can give ourselves. We are not able to predict or control all that life will bring to us, and unless we are out there engaging with life head-on, willing to fail, willing to get up and try again, we’ll miss much of what life has to offer us. If you can live with that, fine. If not, read on and learn about a few ways you can make money as a college student.

On-Campus jobs

There always are jobs on campus, and those who look for them find them. Most college campuses have a career board with postings for on-campus job opportunities. Examples of such opportunities include working in IT support, working at the front desk or serving as an office assistant at any of the campus offices, cashiering at the campus bookstore, hosting the campus radio show, or working as a barista at one of the many campus coffee shops. You could also use your academic expertise to help other students by tutoring at your campus’s tutoring center. Upperclassmen (sophomores, juniors, and seniors) can also apply to be residence advisors (RAs) for their dorm. Depending on the campus, RAs may have their room and meal plan covered.

If you don’t find an opportunity posted that’s a good fit for you, you could always create one! Don’t be afraid to approach your professors and see if they might need a research assistant or an administrator who can help with a project. Even if they don’t have an immediate need, talking to them and demonstrating your interest is a great way to put yourself out there should opportunities become available. If they look hard enough, a sincere, interested, and enthusiastic person will almost always find a gracious adult who would be willing to help. Like Murphy’s ubiquitous law, this is also a law. Those who sincerely try hard enough will find someone who will genuinely want to help them.

Off-Campus jobs

If you don’t find any jobs that interest you on campus, you could also explore jobs off campus. Your campus’s career center is a great resource for finding both on- and off-campus jobs. Off-campus jobs might include babysitting, petsitting, housesitting, working at a local supermarket or other store, and paid internships at companies and organizations. A career counselor can help you create a resume, point you in the direction of potential employers, and prepare you for conversations with these potential employers.

Opportunities from the comfort of your room

This is a connected world. Why limit yourself locally when the whole world is available to you from the comfort of your own room? Perhaps you don’t have time to commit to a full-time or part-time job in addition to your studies. Or perhaps you want to enjoy some flexibility and make some extra money only during your free hours without compromising other pursuits.

Konversai would be a great option for you. If you’re strong at a particular academic subject, offer to tutor. Do you excel at editing? Offer to edit students’ essays. You can choose to tutor, mentor, or edit not only for your peers, but also for younger school students. Do you play a musical instrument? Teach someone else who is just beginning. It is a guarantee that you have within you a skill or knowledge that someone somewhere is willing to pay for. Sign-up for Konversai to learn more. Other websites for freelancing online include Thumbtack, Craigslist, Elance, Upwork, and many others.

“Free” is not always your friend. You’ll learn as you get into the business of making money for your own self-education that the illusion of free is often a path strewn with broken promises, disrespect for time, and subjection to manipulation. We will be faced with hard truths such as this one in life, but the failure to face them preventsus from living and experiencing our best life. College is a time to open the doors to all that the world has to offer you, and Konversai can help you do that. If you would like to talk to someone with more experience as you navigate this rewarding and exciting time of your life, you can most certainly find someone on Konversai who would be willing to talk to you. Sign up for Konversai and discover your passions and your talents and use them to be of benefit to others all over the world.

Don’t waste another second asking yourself “What if?” and instead tell yourself “I can!” Join Konversai and discover the wealth of opportunities available to you.

Written by: Sushma Sharma and Pavita Singh

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