Have you ever tried betting your money on online poker sites only to lose it all?
Well, I am not going to suggest you bet your money on any site, and wait for the cash to crash on your roof. Whether it is legal or illegal in your country, it does not count as ‘earning’ as you do not work for it. You risk what you already have and wait for the ‘luck’ to do its work. It’s called gambling!
Paid online surveys have been chucked out of my list too. Along with them went the websites that pay money to surf sites, watch videos, or play online games. I have tried Toluna, Global Test Market, Valued Opinions, Swagbucks, and several other websites and I have been quite disappointed in what they offer for all our hard work.
You spend hours filling out surveys, only to be told in the end that you do not qualify for many of them. Even if you do manage to complete a few surveys, what you earn is peanuts compared to the hours of efforts you need to put in. Similarly, the time you waste in watching useless videos or playing useless games do not earn you enough to make up for the precious college time you sacrifice for it.
Hence, I am only going to suggest you ways where you have a chance of earning a better amount, require less investment of time and effort, and can add weight to your resume:
1. Online Tutoring or Home Tuitions
Studies prove that teaching someone can help you remember things better. In fact, a study published in the journal Memory & Cognition found that subjects who were expecting to teach new information to other students remembered more than those who were expecting to be tested on the given topic.
Simply thinking about teaching others makes you a better learner!
When you tutor someone who is in the same class as you or a grade or two lower, it’s like revising your concepts and fundamentals most efficiently. If earning money is your primary aim as a college student, you can choose to provide tuitions to elementary school, middle school, and high school students as well. You won’t have to prepare much for the smaller classes, and the experience will hone your communication skills as well as your teaching skills (in case you dream of joining the academia as a teacher or a professor one day).
As an online tutor, you can earn anywhere between $12 and $30 per hour – depending on the subject you teach and your experience as a tutor. If you can offer home tuitions, you can earn anywhere between $30 and $40 per hour.
2. Assignment Help
Believe it or not, but people do pay to get their homework done by experts. Some sites gladly allow graduate students who are in a sophomore year or higher and pass their subject-related exam. All you have to do is to offer the assignment solutions on time, and you get paid a decent amount of money for it. You can earn anywhere between $2,000 and $5,000 per month in this way.
There is another advantage to it. A Computer Science expert, who provides computer science assignment help to students from all over the world, gets an invaluable exposure to different kinds of assignments students need to do worldwide. They need to dig deep and explore the study topics to complete the assignments they undertake, which adds to their knowledge and skills repository.
3. Online Market Trading
Unlike online betting which depends on luck, market trading is actually a skill that you can develop.
You can take a leaf out of the Warren Buffet’s book and read the ‘Intelligent Investor’ by Benjamin Graham. It is a classic that teaches you how to invest your money. You don’t need a fat bank account to enter the world of market traders and stock brokers. You can choose one of the many market trading platforms available online to learn different investment strategies, and experiment with them.
Experiment with small amounts of cash and maintain a profit-and-loss account to determine which strategies work best for you. Investopedia is an excellent site to learn more about investment.
If you are a Finance or Accounts student or have a risk-taking appetite, you might love this option.
4. Teaching or Research Assistance
The Indeed.com claims that in the US, research assistants earn $13.29 per hour on an average. Their typical tenure is less than one year.
Recruiter.com claims that Teacher Assistants earn about $23,200 per annum on an average. Teaching assistants work under the supervision of teachers and may have to prepare lesson plans, take classes, or handle administrative work as required.
Students in professional, scientific, or technical streams can expect to receive highest wages as a teaching or research assistant.
5. Paid Internships
How much you get paid as an intern depends on your qualification, major and industry. A Master’s degree earns about $21 per hour while an intern who is working towards his or her Bachelor’s degree may earn only $16 per hour.
When you choose to do a paid internship, you not only earn money but also get to test-drive the job or the company you have been aspiring for. If you do not like your job, you know that it’s time to switch your careers and look for other options. Since you are still in college, you may want to change some of your courses or take additional courses to broaden your options and prepare for another career.
If you like what you do as an intern, you will be able to apply what you are learning in class in the real-world scenario which will enhance your learning experience.
I hope you like the article. Do share your comments here and let me know what you think about it.
Guest article written by: Rruchi Shrimalli is a Content Marketing Manager for Transtutors.com, and several other websites. She is a writer and a journalist at heart, and has been writing articles on various aspects of the Education domain since 2010. Her articles have been published at Shiksha.com, India.com, and Employment News among others. You can contact her at [email protected].
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