Starting A Side Hustle in School

What is a Side Hustle?

Side hustles are an income generating activity you do in your spare time, you can build a side hustle on the side to whatever you do full time: student or job.

Building a side hustle whilst you’re in school, university/college is the best thing you can do financially, this doesn’t have to become your full time gig- you can still pursue your career options and whatever else you like professionally. 

Having a side hustle brings in income every month aside from an employment you partake part time or full time. This extra stream of income takes away the financial stress of fulfilling your monthly responsibilities in case of a loss of job. 

Whilst you’re in school you have a lot of time on your hand and financial responsibilities are potentially the lowest you’ll ever have in your life- there might be some students who have more responsibilities and may not have the privileges that others have but building a side hustle is a good financial move for everyone. 

Making income from something that you control gives you security that no job can offer, it can also help to relieve stress from financial responsibilities once you’re out of school and have to go into the real world. You don’t have to take the first job that comes your way after finishing your education just because you have to pay the bills, the side hustle you start will let you take your time in finding the perfect job for you whilst taking care of your financial responsibilities. 

Every student should build something using the time they have available to them whilst they’re in school to create an income generating activity that is fully in their control.

Why is it a Good Time to Start a Side Hustle in School?

As I said above when you’re in school you have both the time and lack of financial responsibilities- for most of the students anyway. The time you have available to you gives you the opportunity to experiment different ideas, there is no rush to start making money immediately you can take as little or as much time as you like and see where it goes. 

You never know you may build more than one income generating activity that might bring you in income equivalent to that of a full time job- this can help to pay towards your university/ college costs or to put towards your future when you finish your education.

There is no pressure to make the first thing you try successful and you have the freedom to fail, many things take time before they bring anything so now is the best time to build a side hustle as it’ll be making you money before you finish your education so you won’t be having to get a urgent job to pay your bills.

What Side Hustles Can You Start in School?

There are tons of opportunities to create a side hustle both online and offline, the ideas are endless all you need to do is have the motivation and the drive to get started and find creative ways you can utilise the resources you have.

A couple of ideas you can start to experiment with are:

Affiliate Marketing- 

Many companies offer affiliate programmes that you can take advantage of, the programmes give you a commision for any sales made through your link. You can sign up to these programmes but you’ll need some sort of a platform where you can promote the links and products.

You can either create a blog on a particular subject and add links from different companies into your posts. You’ll need to be established on a platform before you sign up to the companies so take some time to build presence and create content for a platform before you sign up to the programmes and promote the links.

Platforms that you can create could be: 

Blog- you can have a free blog and promote it using social media

Pinterest- again build a presence by creating content and being an active user, once you’ve built an active presence on the platform you can create content for the programme you sign up to

Youtube- if you are confident in putting yourself out there then consider starting a youtube channel where you talk about a certain topic, just like the above the two once you have an active presence sign up to programmes and promote your affiliate links, you don’t have to show your face there are other ways to create youtube videos without showing you face

If this is something that you’re interested in then research what other people who are doing affiliate marketing are doing and create a plan of steps that you want to take to make this successful- remember there is no pressure, take your time and see where it goes, you’re allowed to fail so don’t be stressed out and don’t let it take over your life.

Freelance Writing

Freelance work is becoming really popular especially freelance writing- there are tons of freelance writing opportunities out there in different industries. 

To start with this you’ll need a portfolio- you can do this by either getting a free blog side where you post some pieces of content that you want to write about and get in contact with companies who have content like yours and advertise your service to them.

You’ll need to decide what kind of freelance writing you want to do: freelance blog writing, freelance fiction writing, freelance medical writing and there’s all sorts of writing that can be done- find out what you’re interested in and choose a platform according to that. 

If you want to do fiction ghostwriting then publish short stories on a story writing app where you can showcase your writing skills- so many fiction writers are able to get their stories published because they publish their stories for free and by promoting it on their social media they get the attention of publishers who want to sell their stories. 

You can promote on your social media that you are offering your skills as a ghostwriter- link your work so that potential clients can see your quality of work. 

Another way you can make money from your writing is you can publish e-books of at a low-price but post samples so people can see what your style is like and can hire you if you meet their requirements.

Freelance Services aside from Writing

If writing isn’t something that interests you then there are tons of other services you can offer: design services, you can create examples of leaflets and business cards which you can promote on social media to find clients that want design services such as yours- pick a certain industry that you want to create designs for and create samples to promote. 

Freelance photography, photo editing, video editing, proofreader, social media assistant/ manager and there are so many more services you can offer. Make a list of things you enjoy doing: maybe you enjoy editing your photos, create some examples of the work you can offer and use the appropriate platform to advertise your services.

Freelance work can be uncertain at the start as well as the income but as you start building your portfolio of work the work will start to become regular and it’ll be up to you to do as much or as little as you want- that’s the beauty of freelance side hustle is you can cater it to your time limits and requirements.

It can seem like it’ll take time since building your portfolio is time consuming and you want to create the best possible content you can to showcase to potential clients but as long as you stick to it and take it little by little you’ll eventually get to your goal.

Be Patient and Remember Your Priorities

Even though I’m in complete support of side hustles it’s important to remember that school is your first priority since you’re at university/ college for a reason so don’t let this overtake your life and don’t stress about it. Take your time and work towards it little bit at a time and you’ll start to see slow growth- no matter how small the growth it’s getting you close to where you need to be. 

Do your research and experiment with what you enjoy doing- don’t give up but don’t do something that just stresses you out, you’ll learn skills and discipline through building your side hustle.

There are tons of other ideas out there so do your research and do what sounds cool and interesting to you- make it a little project for you to indulge in spare time.