This is the first post in a series titled Make Money in Graduate School, where I explain the importance of realizing you have options for how to sustain yourself—financially and emotionally—in graduate school. This post introduces three pathways graduate students can take to making money by doing personally rewarding and meaningful work. In the following posts in the series I outline each of these in more detail.
The years you spend in graduate school can be among the most incredible and rewarding in your life. Being able to engage in a sustained period of intense learning and rapid growth is an incredible luxury that many people will never experience. Additionally, I made lifelong friends in graduate school who will forever enrich my life no matter where life takes me. I feel an incredible sense of gratitude for having had the privilege and opportunity to get a PhD.
The reality is that graduate school can also be brutally hard. The journey to a PhD offers up many rewards, but also innumerable challenges. For many, that journey brings about occasional feelings of helplessness and self-doubt. At any given time you might feel stuck in a cycle of being perpetually broke. Or feel trapped by your department or advisor’s expectations. On that long road, some people feel like they’ve lost track of themselves, that they have lost sight of their initial purpose for being there, or become unable to see the finish line. And that’s okay. There are twists and turns in every great journey. Stories without conflict are boring.
For those experiencing graduate school’s twists and turns, there’s good news. First off, you are not alone. Many—even most—people end up experiencing these things somewhere along the way. Secondly, there are things you can do to help yourself grapple with these feelings, and you might be able to make some money in the process. In this post, I outline some of the ways you can make money in graduate school and describe how some of these money-making ventures can help your professional and emotional life as much as your flailing financial accounts. The key is in understanding that you have options about how you use your time.