I just read a great post on tips for college students who want to freelance while they're in school over at Freelance Switch. If you're a college student looking to break into freelancing (or gearing up to generate more work), I suggest you check it out.
I started juggling school and freelance work after my junior year at Drake University. It does require some serious time management, but the rewards are worth it. When I graduated from school, I'd earned a decent amount of money and had a full portfolio of clips. Even if you're not landing high-paying gigs, it's worth it to get the experience and get your name out. Look for local publications, nonprofits, and small business who could use some help writing articles, crafting marketing materials, and so on. Trust me, it's worth your time, even if you aren't snagging cover stories for national magazines right away.
One last note: There's some debate as to whether you should present yourself as a college student or not. Most of the people I freelanced for knew I was a college student because I landed work with them through internships or Drake connections. But I definitely didn't go out of my way to publicize the fact. Right after I graduated, I started taking on copy editing projects. Most of my work was done remotely, so when editors actually met me in person they'd about fall of their chairs. "Wow! We didn't realize you were so young," I heard, more than once. There wasn't anything wrong with that fact, and at the point I met them it didn't matter because I'd already established myself as a copy editor.
I can't help wonder though: If they had known how young I was before I got the copy editing jobs, would those gigs have gone to someone else?
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