How to make money as a programmer in college

If you have a useful, marketable idea for an app, you can easily make money by building it yourself for free, launching it on the the App Store and selling it to the public. Things started changing as soon as I threw that mantra out the window. If this article was helpful, tweet it. The commission varies a lot based on the product, your performance, and other variables. They wanted financial freedom and the opportunity to get a head start on their student loans.

Easiest Ways to Make Money in College

So much so, that some students use it as a badge of honor, bragging about how they manage to survive only on instant noodles. There are a whole host of ways you can make money as a student, and they go well beyond stereotypical student jobs like delivering pizza and working fast food. These are mostly traditional hourly jobs where the university schedules you to work a set how to make money as a programmer in college of hours per week. However, these jobs still span a wide variety of areas, from leadership to research to good ole-fashioned manual labor. Whatever the specific duties, being a TA is a great way to get hands-on experience with teaching and the daily life of a professor. In some cases, you can also get class credit for being a TA.

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Our number one goal at DollarSprout is to help readers improve their financial lives, and we regularly partner with companies that share that same vision. Some of the links in this post may be from our partners. When I was in college, I was always looking for ways to make money. I babysat, tutored, and did a bit of freelance writing so I could earn some extra cash for living expenses and savings. Here are but a few of the many ways you can crush the interest on your student loans and pay down debt before you ever leave school. You can work for this type of company and make money delivering food.

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So much so, that some students use it as a badge of honor, bragging about how they manage to survive only on instant noodles. There are a whole host of ways you can make money as a student, and they go well beyond stereotypical student jobs like delivering pizza and working fast food. These are mostly traditional hourly jobs where the university schedules you to work a set number of hours per week. However, these jobs still span a wide variety of areas, from leadership to research to good ole-fashioned manual labor.

Whatever the specific duties, being a TA is a great way to get hands-on experience with teaching and the daily life of a professor. In some cases, you can also get class credit for being a TA.

While TA positions are sometimes advertised on official campus job boards, the best way to get one is to contact the professor you want to TA for directly.

On the humanities side, you might do anything from scanning pages from a book to transcribing recorded interviews for use in an essay I did this a lot when I worked for an English professor after my sophomore year.

Like TA jobs, professors or departments will sometimes post openings for research assistants on campus job boards. But you can also go to a professor directly and offer to assist. Working as an RA might be the quintessential campus job. As an RA, your main job is to build community among students while also serving as a resource for any questions they might have about college life. Make no mistake: being an RA is not an easy job. Also, you have to live in a dorm, which is a drawback for some people.

But it can also be a rewarding job, as you get to see students grow and thrive as they find their place in the campus community. Becoming an RA is a lengthy process. Your job is to be able to answer any question a resident would have about living on campus, so expect to study up and never stop learning. Some will pay you a monthly stipend, while others will give you free or discounted housing. Hopefully, you visited your college before deciding to go. And if you did visit, you probably took a tour.

Becoming a campus tour guide is a straightforward process. There will also be some training involved, including shadowing an existing tour guide and likely giving a mock tour to your supervisor.

Okay, so maybe working as a tour guide sounds like too much sunshine and physical activity. You will encounter questions that seem, well, kinda dumb. To work for campus IT, you may have to meet certain prerequisites.

Any existing technical or computer how to make money as a programmer in college are also a bonus, though a good attitude and a willingness to learn are the most important qualifications. To help prospective students get an idea of what college life is like, many universities offer the chance to do overnight visits. The prospectives will shadow a current student, going to their classes, sleeping in their dorm, and experiencing college firsthand.

In my experience, college admissions departments can never get enough people to do this, so it can be a good way to improve your social skills while also making money or at least getting perks. In many cases, these positions do not pay. However, they often come with perks, especially if you agree to host regularly. I had one friend who got a discount on his housing in exchange for agreeing to host students. To become an prospective student host, you generally just have to inquire at your campus admissions office.

Have culinary aspirations? Then maybe you could work in campus dining. This job could involve anything from restocking the stations in the cafeteria to scooping french fries at midnight on a Saturday in the campus late night restaurant.

Be prepared to spend a lot of time on your feet, wear a hairnet, and work weird hours. To apply, most colleges will require you to fill out a standard application along with a resume and possibly a short cover letter. Whatever the size of your campus, all universities need people and things driven. Large universities operate bus services to get people from one end of campus to another, all colleges need vehicles to transport heavy furniture and equipment, and some colleges even operate special late night shuttles to help drunk students get home safely.

In some cases, students are eligible to work as drivers for these vehicles. These jobs are an opportunity to meet a variety of interesting people, explore your campus, and drive vehicles that you might never get to.

Depending on the size of your campus, you may or may not have a centralized university post office. My college was small enough that we did, and I spent an enjoyable 3 semesters working. I sorted the mail, gave people their packages, and even delivered mail to the rest of the campus I got to drive a golf cart. Other requirements are minimal, though a good attitude and work ethic are always valuable.

To provide students with further homework and study assistants, many departments will have dedicated tutors. These tutors are generally students who have advanced knowledge of the subject in question.

Math is probably the most common, though tutors for most general science courses and even certain humanities fields also exist at many universities. For instance, most upper-level engineering students should be qualified to tutor introductory math and physics classes. The process to become a tutor depends on the department and the way your college structures its tutoring.

Both of which are highly valuable skills to prospective employersby the way. Psst: Want the perks of tutoring while also setting your own rates and having greater control over your schedule?

Look into freelance tutoring, which you can learn about. Always getting top grades on your essays? Then maybe the writing center would be a good place to work. Most colleges have one, and the job of tutors there is to assist students with all things related to writing.

You also have the flexibility to set hours that work for you, and you get to read papers on subjects you would probably never read. If you go to a large university, the dorms likely have a front desk where students can get their packages, report issues with their rooms, and get let into the building if they get locked.

It can also be a good job to get your foot in the door if you want to be an RA. A college has a lot of moving parts, and sooner or later some of those parts will break. This is where the maintenance crew comes in. Your job will be to assist the professional maintenance workers in fixing whatever is broken. You might be replacing lights, repairing doors, or removing junk from buildings I had a friend who spent an entire summer doing.

The qualifications will vary with how technical the job is. You can apply the same as you would for any other campus job, with a resume and interview being all you usually need. Just as things break, they also get dirty. That could be you, if you work for campus custodial services. So long as you know how to use cleaning equipment, you should be qualified, though you may need to do some special training in how to use more technical equipment and how to properly clean up hazardous materials.

This one is a bit unconventional, but it can be a well-paying opportunity. As a campus artist model, you pose for art students while they draw or paint your image. You should of course inquire as to the job duties before you agree. To apply, the best step would be to talk to the head of the art department.

Want to learn about even more great campus jobs? Check out our list of the 26 best part-time jobs for college students. Moving on from campus jobs, we step out into the world. This is where things start to get interesting, as the amount of money you can make increases dramatically compared to campus jobs which generally pay minimum wage.

This does mean, however, that these jobs can be less flexible with regards to your class schedule, so make sure you only pick jobs that you can manage in addition to your school work.

Have a car and want to put it to work? Driving for Uber or Lyft is an option. This job is immensely flexible, allowing you to drive whenever is convenient for you. You earn a percentage of the fare that passengers pay, as well as any tips they decide to give you. In practice, the pay will be closer to minimum wage though you can increase your earnings by operating in busy areas with high demand. Have some marketable skills? Then TaskRabbit could be the place to use them to make some extra money.

TaskRabbit is a service that connects Taskers people with skills with customers that need. Originally, the service focused on physical skills such as yard work, cleaning, or help with moving. Now, however, the platform also allows you to perform virtual tasks such as data entry or even graphic design.

You get to set your own hourly rate and determine your own schedule, making this another appealing option for college students. Learn more about how to apply. Want to use your car, bike, or even your feet to make some extra money? Delivering things is an option to consider, especially with the proliferation of delivery apps these days. Options include DoorDash deliver food from local restaurantsPostmates deliver just about anythingAmazon Flex deliver anything Amazon deliversand Instacart deliver groceries.

These services tend to have the same sorts of requirements, including a minimum age generally betweennecessary licenses and insurance if using a vehicleand the necessary method of transportation. In larger cities, however, you can sometimes make deliveries on a bike or even on foot.

So how much can you make? It depends. You also have to consider the expense of maintaining your vehicle and buying gas if applicable. Still, it has way more flexibility than lots of other student jobs, so it could be worth it if you want to make some extra cash.

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