Ask HN: How do you make money as a Computer Science student?

3 points by devilmoon 7y ago ↗ HN

A bit of background on my situation so you might give me more personalised advice: I graduated in 2017 with a Bachelor in CS and already had a job by that time. What seemed like a decent opportunity to kick-start my career quickly turned into what I believe would've been a dead end job which I would've dreaded every day of my life, so I decided to quit last summer and enroll into a Masters in Data Science. Being used to a monthly salary and not having to ask my parents for money I feared this moment as I knew I would have had to deal back on my QoL quite a bit, but on top of that me and my family have had a string of misfortunes and now money is quite thight (nothing like going bankrupt, but still requires careful management of our finances). All this combined, I find myself starting a new study cycle which will last at minimum two years and almost no money; hence I'm wondering: how does a student in CompSci make money while studying?

Apart from the obvious part time jobs (retail, fast foods etc.) - which I would like to avoid as I fear they would sap my time and strength without letting me grow as a computer scientist - I've looked into freelance gigs, consulting work and remote companies; unluckily for me, most if not all the opportunities I've come across require a full-time commitment, something I don't have the luxury of giving unless I decide to take way more than 2 years to graduate, and freelancing in particular seems to focus on webdev/mobile, areas which are not my strong suit and I don't even like that much.

What would you recommend in this situation? Swallow the pill and learn stacks that sell through freelancing? Find something completely unrelated to CompSci that allows me to work part-time? Start emailing every company offering CS jobs in the area and asking if they're willing to take on a part-timer?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

2 comments

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PaulHoule 7y ago ↗

Often there are ways to make money around an academic environment.

For instance I got paid part-time to do research as an undergraduate at New Mexico Tech. I know at Cornell this is this service called "TakeNote" which pays graduate students to take notes for undergraduate classes. I am sure there are other things at other unis. Note that people around Unis have a large need for services involving (natural) languages that are not their native language so if you know language L you may be helpful in many ways to people who don't know L.

One of the best "unskilled" jobs you can get is doing high-intensity cleaning projects at somebody's house. This is not being a regular maid but rather busting ass for four hours to do the cleaning that a homeowner would take twelve hours to do so that they see upwards of $25 an hour in value if not more.

devilmoon 7y ago ↗

Universities in my country only offer what are called "collaboration bursaries", which is 120hrs of unskilled work paid 10€/h. I already plan on applying, but as you can imagine it is nothing more than a stopgap. I've thought about posting on the schools bulletin board that I'm willing to help people with their PCs and whatnot, or maybe even do tutoring in CS, but it seems like a long shot for someone to actually call you.

As for languages I think that's most likely a no-go, my university is trilingual and most student are required extensive knowledge of the languages to graduate (for which the university itself offers many many MANY courses)