How to Make Money While You’re in High School or College
Making money is super enticing, and it was never before possible to this scale that you could make money while studying. Most of the time, the work that you could do during high school or college would not contribute to your education, but today we live in a gig economy, and you can be really creative in how you use the internet to connect with people and provide services for others.
In this blog, I want to focus on the ventures and opportunities that are out there that you can use to supplement and bolster your education. I’ve done jobs and volunteering in the past that I felt weren’t really aligned with my goals, and for that reason, I was making some money but not really learning any useful or tangible skills. Instead, I want to focus on ways that you can make money while learning the subject that you’re interested in, building up your resume, networking, and gaining experience.
My first recommendation would be to create an account on Fiverr or Upwork (or whatever freelance website is most popular at the time that you’re reading this). These are freelance sites that allow you to post a service that you’re willing to do in exchange for a rate that you set for yourself. I see a lot of coders who can build apps for you, design a website, do UI/UX, and work on some algorithms. I see a lot of writers who offer their skills to write blog posts, research information for SEO, ghostwrite novels and nonfiction books, edit people’s essays, teach people how to write, and more. I also see a lot of people who are good at music production offer to produce people’s music or collaborate or other things.
One thing that’s super cool about the freelance economy is that you can do your best to set your own hours, so if you’re on the bus for half an hour on the ride to school, you can work during that time. Find a field that you’re interested in, and then think about what sorts of skills you really want to develop in that field. When somebody is paying you some rate, then you’re really incentivized to learn that skill, and you gain a lot of real-world skills no matter what. The other really amazing part about this is that you’re building your resume while you’re earning money, so if you took a class on how to do UI/UX for apps, then I would recommend creating your seller account and listing under your qualification that you’re a student and you took a class on this. You can start out by setting your price low and then get some orders to start working on. You don’t have to be nervous in the beginning if you set your price low, because if somebody’s not paying too much then they shouldn’t be expecting world-class quality.
As you get some reviews and you get some more experience, you can raise your prices every few weeks or months, until you gain enough experience to be really confident in yourself. You should also be documenting all the projects you’re working on, and screenshot all the positive testimonials you get. When you’re applying to jobs, think how impressive it would be for an employer or an admissions officer to see the types of apps you’ve worked on, and the glowing reviews you’ve received in the past. Don’t you think that’s so much more impressive than stating on your application that you took a class in app development? If you’ve helped 15 people build apps, then that’s incredibly powerful evidence that you’re hard-working, diligent, and capable, all at a young age. You’re gaining experience, wisdom, intuition, and money, all at the same time. It’s all upside!
The second way that you can start making money while bolstering your education without too much extra work is by creating a blog or a Youtube channel focused on your experiences as a student at your school. The really cool thing about this is that you can be super niche as a student in a particular geographic area at a specific school. For instance, on this blog I write a lot of content about the experiences I’ve had, what I’ve learned, my applications, what worked for me and what didn’t, my study plans for different exams, sample essays that I’ve written, and anything else that I think can help somebody who a few years younger and on the same pathway as me. You can find a really easy audience this way because chances are, there are not too many people at your particular school who are so kind to share so much advice for free.
For instance, if you go to a college, there are probably just a few YouTubers who share advice about what classes to take, what the campus looks like, how to apply for different positions, how to get into different grad schools, what to do during freshman year, what foods are good on and off-campus, etc. If you can be one of those people, who shares with others what your experiences are at the school that you go to, you can build a really successful account very quickly, since you have a pretty big and well-defined audience without too much competition.
You also have a lot of “evergreen” content – stuff that lasts for several decades, since most things at schools don’t change too much that quickly. After you’ve built a following, you can start to monetize your project in whatever way possible. The really cool thing about this strategy is that you can get really good at marketing, networking, content creation, writing, video production and editing, and more while meeting a lot more friends nearby who are very grateful for your advice. It’s not too much extra work, since it’s just documenting things that you’ve found based on personal experience.
My third recommendation is to find work in a field that you’re interested in, using Linkedin or Facebook, or some other social network page. If you’re interested in being a lawyer, search up the kinds of things on Reddit that prelaw students say they really enjoy or that really helped them with the LSAT, or that really helped them dive deep into the life of a lawyer, and start applying to those things.
Make sure that you mention that you’re only available part-time since you’re a student and that you’re willing to accept a lower pay but you really want to learn a lot of skills while you’re at the job. If you can show enough competence, you can really gain a lot of experience and skills very quickly, and hopefully, you ask for a letter of recommendation that you can show to future employers or admissions officers.
I’ve done a lot of work in the past that have really helped me become better at communicating with others and taking care of sick people – being a caretaker, talking to an elderly patient with partial paralysis, serving on a suicide helpline, etc – and most students who are premed do similar activities. By looking for jobs that will pay you some money to do work that will teach you a lot of skills and experience, you’ll be gaining real-world experience while making money.
I hope you found this helpful. These are my suggestions for ways to gain skills, experience, and employment as a student who’s interested in furthering their career.
A lot has changed in the past few years, and one of the things that I focused on was “permission-less forms of leverage” – that is, ways that you can multiply the labor that you do without asking anybody for permission. For you to make money by getting employees or by investing money into the stock market, you have to have enough money or authority to hire people or to invest, but for you to create a Youtube channel or to create a Fiverr account, you don’t need anybody’s permission. That’s why working today is so interesting! You can make money and accelerate your career path at the same time.
Thank you so much for reading all the way! Please reach out with any questions – Naman
ความคิดเห็น