Side Jobs to Make Extra Money During PhD?

[TXInstrument11]

If I can't manage to secure an outside fellowship, my budget is going to be extremely tight.

I was considering picking up a campus job for the spring or summer. Does anyone have experience doing something like this?

 

[dr. t]

If you are getting any sort of tuition remission or stipend from the university, be very careful to read the fine print - working an outside job during the school year is often explicitly prohibited, and punished by the loss of that aid.

[TXInstrument11]

Hm. Yes, I forgot about that. I suppose my job would have to be cash then so it would fly under the radar - babysitting, lawn mowing, private tutoring?

Edited August 25, 2015 by TXInstrument11

[shadowclaw]

Do read the fine print... sometimes it may prohibit any work, sometimes it may restrict how many hours you can work, and I recall someone mentioning that they were allowed to work any outside job, but they couldn't work at one on campus.

I find it hard to believe that if the funding is low enough that you would have hard time making ends meet, that you wouldn't be allowed to at least get part-time hours somewhere (and I recommend waiting tables, bartending, or delivering pizza). However, I'm not an expert on these things. If you have the funding offered to you already, then you should have access to the fine print. Universities generally have the info posted somewhere on their website, too (check the financial aid section).

You can certainly try working under the table, and there are more options than just babysitting and lawn mowing. However there is always the possibility of getting caught, although something like babysitting may be overlooked.

[spunky]

Hm. Yes, I forgot about that. I suppose my job would have to be cash then so it would fly under the radar - babysitting, lawn mowing, private tutoring?

have you considered jumping into the "sharing economy" like becoming an Uber driver or posting on TaskRabbit?

from what i read in one of your other posts (and because i assume we are in somewhat similar programs) i can tell you that if you're willing to do data analysis for other people, you can make a pretty decent buck. and i'm speaking from experience here. god knows i wouldn't have been able to afford graduate school without putting some of my quantitative skills to work

[isilya]

from what i read in one of your other posts (and because i assume we are in somewhat similar programs) i can tell you that if you're willing to do data analysis for other people, you can make a pretty decent buck. and i'm speaking from experience here. god knows i wouldn't have been able to afford graduate school without putting some of my quantitative skills to work

Out of curiosity, how did you get these side data analysis jobs? That's something I'd be interested in but I have no idea where to start.

[spunky]

Out of curiosity, how did you get these side data analysis jobs? That's something I'd be interested in but I have no idea where to start.

Well, I started off pretty early (3^rd year undergrad) because I needed money to finish paying for my degree. At that time there was a website (which I think ended up being bought by freelancer.com) where people would basically just post a brief description of their project, the budget they had available and then people (like me) would bid for those projects. I always took on the social science ones because I knew from my brief stint in psych classes that this is a widely untapped market by people who are mostly familiar STEM areas so I knew I had an angle there.  Little by little I started building up some rep and cut the middle man (the website which takes its share of your money) so I would deal with clients (and referrals) directly. Everything happened online: they would email me a description of their project, I’d give them half of it, I get half of the agreed price on my PayPal and then I’d finish everything for the 2^nd half. I can’t tell for sure, but just by the type of questions and project descriptions I got, I’m pretty sure there are a few thesis/dissertations/published articles where all the analysis was done courtesy of yours truly.

 

When Kaggle became available I only kept my best online clients (from which I started building a more “official” looking business as a self-employed data analyst) and devouted my time to Kaggle competitions.  They take a lot of time but even if you only get one right, they pay REALLY well. At the same time, my graduate program opened a position for a “student consultant” to which other graduate students go to looking for advice in terms of running their statistics for their own research or methods questions. And I just straight up started offering: I can either “consult” you for free (because my meagre salary was being paid for the university) or I can do the whole analysis and write up a report with pretty graphs and colours, everything APA style and unlimited follow-ups in case revisions were requested. And from there I just ended up building a client base of students that, as expected, recommended me to their advisors and profs (who have lots of grant money) and then I just starting getting hired by the advisors directly.

 

Overall, the one thing life has taught me is that there is always more data out there than people able to analyze it properly. And if you know how to analyze things (and, more importantly how to effectively communicate the results of your analyses), work (and $$$) will never run out. 

[isilya]

Thanks for the detailed response, that was super helpful!!

[juilletmercredi]

Oh yup.

Things I did for extra money in graduate school:

• Teaching assistant (wasn't required to by my funding, so I got paid extra money, and I did some for summer programs and such which also paid extra)
• Statistical data analysis
• Internship at a market research firm
• Graduate hall director for residential life
• Worked in the library assisting undergrads with statistics projects and teaching workshops

They were a mix of on-campus and off-campus jobs.

A good thing to do is try to find work that will directly relate to something you might want to do after the grad degree. That market research internship directly related (and indirectly led) to me getting the non-academic job I have now, post-graduation. The experience as a hall director made me interested in student services jobs at colleges and universities. Basically, I was interested in different types of non-academic work, and I used these part-time opportunities to explore those types of work.