In today's fast-paced society you don't necessarily need a steady job to make money. In fact, you can make money much easier than you think, and you can do it straight from your dorm room or apartment.
As the number of worldwide Internet users grows, information is becoming increasingly valuable. By effectively marketing your knowledge, companies might be willing to pay you for your expertise as a freelance worker.\nAccording to a recent CNN Money article, around 42 million workers make up the U.S. workforce in fields of freelance, self-employed and part-time work, which together account for 30 percent of the economy and will account for 40 percent of the U.S. workforce by 2019.
Most individuals offer their freelance services in computer programming contracts, graphic design for websites and even 3-D movie animation. The article added that soon it will become increasingly common to see freelance services offered in "professions such as accounting, engineering, health care, law and sales."
There are numerous websites which help freelancers market themselves to clients and vice versa, including Elance.com, oDesk.com and Guru.com. If you are interested in completing a project for a client, these websites require you to list your specialized skills, post examples of previously completed contracts and state your hourly rate. Once you complete this step, you can bid for proposed contracts. If you are an employer searching for freelance contractors, you will need to post a description of the project and its deadline, then wait to see what contract bids you receive.
Although freelancing can certainly help you earn beer money for the weekend, it includes other perks, the first being experience. These opportunities will give you firsthand exposure to new techniques and allow you to tune up skills that need improvement.
One of the best parts about being a freelancing student is the networking aspect. If you complete successful projects on-time for your clients, they will return to you. The more professional interactions you share, the stronger relationships you will form. If you play your cards right, it could help you land a summer internship or a future job with that company.
If you are not a "techy" person there are still plenty of great ways to make money as a freelance worker. One way to do this is by freelance writing. This idea may sound like more work than it really is, but it's rather simple. To get started, all you have to do is edit essays you have written for classes and post them online. These pieces can be lengthy and research-based, brief and personal or even short poems - it's really whatever you prefer.
In the past, writers could submit their work to Associated Content - a division of Yahoo - and the website would pay users anywhere from $3 to $20 per article, providing it was well-written.
Recently, however, Yahoo Voices has replaced Associated Content. Within this new division, there are more than two million articles covering thousands of topic areas. Now, with Yahoo Voices, you can still submit your writing, but it will earn money depending on the amount of Internet traffic it receives. So if you are a constant blogger and would like to make some money off of your entries, you should upload as many entries as you can to Yahoo Voices as soon as possible so that more users will check out your work. It would also be a good idea to send the links to your friends to generate more Internet traffic.
The best part about all of this is that it's freelance. There are no time commitments or set schedules. Being a freelancer allows you to be your own boss for as long as you want. So if you have a busy week with classes or rush events, you can take a whole week off. If you have some free time, it doesn't take more than a few minutes to upload work you completed for last semester.
So even though jobs may be hard to find in Charlottesville, offer your knowledge to the online community and convert downtime into cash-time.\n
Matt's column runs biweekly Wednesdays. He can be reached at m.robertson@cavalierdaily.com.
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