Online Jobs For College Students

Online jobs for college students is a really popular topic because college is the best time to figure out what you want to do with your life. Finding online jobs for college students is the best strategy to pay down debt and figure out what’s next. You can check out my more detailed piece that gives you 6 easy-to-follow steps for starting an online business right now. You can also sign up with Bluehost or check out Hostgator to get your domain and hosting.

If you’re one of the many college students who would like to avoid a job that requires you to wear a paper hat, then you’re lucky to live in an age when work is literally a click away.  The internet offers a wide variety of job options for the motivated student, and chances are good that you can take advantage of most, if not all of them.  So take a gander at the top five jobs that you can do from the relative comfort of your very own dorm room (bean-bag chair optional).

1. Freelance Writer – You got into college, so chances are, you can write a basic essay or produce some engaging prose.  So why not sing for your supper (so to speak)?  Websites like ODesk (www.odesk.com) and Elance (www.elance.com) are looking for gifted voices just like yours to tackle the many writing needs of their corporate clients, piecemeal, as it were.  You can even look for jobs on Craig’s List (www.craigslist.com), but unlike the other sites, this one offers no guarantees or recourse, so be careful.
2. Graphic Designer – A picture is worth a thousand words, so if your creative tendencies lean more towards the visual, you can still take advantage of the many freelance jobs in graphic design.  Reputable sites like ODesk and Elance can help you in this arena, as well.
3. Tutor – This is a great job for college students, although you may have to leave your dorm room to do it.  You can sign up with an online service provider like http://collegetutors.com, or apply with organizations like Sylvan Learning Center or The Princeton Review, just be prepared to do house calls.  However, it’s still a great way to make money while working around your own school schedule.
4. Virtual Assistant – Many businesses are now turning to the internet for virtual assistants to do all sorts of work, such as customer service, website maintenance, data entry, and other administrative tasks.  You can find these types of jobs on sites like Elance and Able Web Professionals, Inc. (www.ablewebpro.com).  There are even services for remote receptionists (www.telassistant.com).  So if your talents lean more towards the clerical than the creative, this may be a better solution.
5. Blogger – You may wonder how you can earn a living by starting and running your own blog.  Well, I’m not going to lie, it may take a lot of time and effort.  The way to make money off a blog is by selling ad space.  And the way to attract advertising is by building a following.  Advertisers want to see a lot of traffic before they invest, so you may have to do some research to ensure your site generates enough hits to make it solvent.  In the long run, though, this last option may produce the most profit.  If your site gets big enough, it could become a full-time business (think Perez Hilton or TMZ), or you could end up getting bought out by someone bigger.

You never know when you can land one of the best online jobs for college students. I played around with a few ideas before I realized that blogging was right for me.

This was a guest post from Sarah Harris of Zen College Life.