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Ask HN: What advice do you have for a student wanting to freelance?

8 points by brewerhimself ↗ HN
I’m thinking about going back to school in the Fall to get a degree in Computer Science or Mathematics. I suppose the reason I’m not sure whether I want to or not is because I’ll have to spend 2 years at a community college where I can’t take any CS courses and between school and working part-time, I won’t have much time to do any programming. A solution to this is to do some freelance development while I study, in lieu of working a job in, say, retail or fast food.

I’ve never done any freelancing or professional development before. What advice do you have to offer to someone in my situation?

9 comments

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kkoppenhaver
Ask around and see if any of the professors who aren't affiliated with Computer Science are looking for some help. I'm working on a site for a Psychology professor who didn't want to code the entire thing himself. He was even able to get a grant to help pay for my and my colleague's work.
vigrant
This strategy worked for me, I ended up doing some cool stuff for a professor whose work focuses on pompeii.
brewerhimself
How would you recommend I approach my professors? Should I send an email or show up to their office?
kenjisn
Set up a protocol on how you will work with prospects. Join Guru.com and read what clients are looking for. Remember that freelancing is about selling yourself so you need a positive first impression because you will compete with others and you want your clients to call you for new projects Set up a personal website with a portfolio and blog. Provide git hub url to clients so they can see your code. Highlight your good documentation practices

Work hard.

brewerhimself
I've heard that sites like Guru may not be the best approach because so many people are willing to work for next to nothing. Seeing as I'm unwilling to work for $5/hr, this seems troubling.
codgercoder
I think I once saw a posting where the bids were between $2 and $8 per hour. And people wonder why no one wants to go into programming!
smartwater
Plenty of people want to program. More so now than ever before. Just because there is a market for $8/hour programming doesn't really mean anything. There is a market for $800/hour programming too, and everything in between.
ja27
See if there are some local developer Meetups or user groups. Microsoft does a lot of them, at least in my area. There are things like Barcamp and other things that draw techies. If you dig around on Twitter for local developers you'll eventually find a decent list of upcoming events. The point of all of that is to build local contacts outside of school. A lot of freelance jobs float around local devs I know.