Side Hustles for College Students
College, a time to explore a wide palette of experiences. To try new things, To make new relationships, and most importantly to have fun. However, college shouldn't just be a 4-day bender drinking with your closest friends. It is also a good opportunity to try new side hustles.
If you’re a student just trying to earn some extra cash and want to know some ideas for a side hustle. You’ve come to the right place.
Here are 5 ideas that can help you generate income during school. Before we start, I suggest not trying all of these at once. You don’t want to spread yourself too thin and want to dial in your time to only one or two things in this list. Don’t forget you are still a student, don’t underestimate the amount of work you will have during the year. Pick a side hustle that you can see yourself doing 5 years from now.
Okay with that out of the way.
Here are 5 ideas to help you generate some income.
Tutor / Teaching Assistant
You don’t have to be the best to teach someone else. You just need to break down complicated ideas into more manageable pieces. You can tutor high school kids in basic subjects such as pre-calculus, writing, or even programming. You can ask some of your friends and family who are in need of a tutor. You can use sites such as tutorme.com to find people online. You can potentially make around $20to $50 depending on the subject.
Another option is to become a Teach Assistant or in short a T.A for your school. Becoming a T.A has will help you refine your knowledge of the material at hand. You can also expect a consistent payout throughout the year. Lastly, it is a great thing to write about in your resume. Recruiter love seeing students have experience teaching. And for good reason, teaching is such a strong skill to have and is vital if you enter the workforce. By becoming a T.A you could make around $400–$500 per semester.
Flipping
If you reading this article in April 2021, or the end of your school year. It is that time to find some great deals!
Students are selling all their household items. As students leave campus, this is a good opportunity to find undervalued items in the marketplace. You can scour through the Facebook marketplace within your area. Try to find typical appliances such as Couches, Desk Chairs, Monitors, and etc. You could take advantage of reselling these pieces on other websites other websites
Resell Marketplace
- eBay
- Craigslist
- Facebook Marketplace
- Kijiji
- Depop
If you find the right product you could easily make a $200 profit on a single item using one of these websites.
Photography
This may require some skills and some initial investment for this side hustle. This side hustle is something that I personally do. For several years, I have run a photography business while being an undergrad. However, I started this side hustle is not even having a camera myself.
I was part of a photography class in school, and they lend out a couple of DSLR throughout the school year. However, since no one in my class was very interested in photography, I borrowed the camera throughout the entire year. In university, I took headshots for people. The goal was to find a student house with multiple roommates. I would also try batch shoot these events into a single day. At one point, I was able to shoot 14 people in one day. You can use this strategy and make around $50-$350 in 2 hours of work.
Part-Time Job
Finally, you can also work for the school or a small business during the academic year. You can work a desk job in your school’s library or gym. Some schools also offer work-study programs, which help students find jobs. Or you could try finding a small business that willing to hire students. These would coffee shops, IT stores, or even any apparel shop.
