Students That Freelance

In today's troubled economy and struggling job market, many individuals are realizing that one job just isn't enough to cover the cost of rising expenses. Those with student loans have it especially tough, as they face the stress of ensuring they have enough to pay for daily expenses as well as monthly loan payments. Leisurely activities and other recreational expenses often have to be eliminated. To remedy this, many have turned to freelancing. Freelancing isn't for everyone—the additional hours can add up, and less leisure time with your family and friends can also be a strain. But if you can handle a second job, there are many benefits.

At any stage in your freelancing career and beyond, you have the opportunity to use your skills for non-profit organizations, charities and social causes. Even as a new freelancer or student, your skills are always in-demand in the non-profit world. This provides an excellent opportunity for you to get exposure – sometimes very significant exposure that leads to several other jobs.

In this economic climate thousands of freelance students are finding it tougher than ever to land their perfect job. After studying for many years and racking up a huge debt it can be utterly demoralizing to find that once you’ve graduated from University, you’ll be fighting it out with hundreds of thousands of other qualified and eager graduates in the search for work. Law and medical graduates have it far easier than most as it is common for Law firms and Hospital boards to actively target the University campus in search for talent. For the rest of us however, if we want to survive after University in a market saturated with qualified graduates, then freelancing represents an exciting opportunity to get some experience in a specific field and yet maintain control over your own life and finances.

Most engineers have a profound dislike for the subjective, and I was no exception.  In school, presentations often felt like a popularity contest no matter how unbiased the professors claimed to be.  In the freelance world though, every meeting with a client is a mini-presentation and your audience is even more influenced by his/her emotions.  To get the best contracts at the best rates, we have take a deep breath and embrace the subjective.

The following post is a guest post by Amanda Hackwith, author of "Freelance Confidential." See the end of the post for author and book details John Lasseter, director and chief creative officer at Pixar, summed it up beautifully: “In any creative industry, quality is the sole business plan that prevails in the long run.” The quality of your current and former work is what will turn new and returning clients into a reliable stream of work and success. Portfolios are vital for student freelancers—if clients are skeptical about working with you for any reason, you have to quickly and easily impress them with your collection of work.