Personal Finance for PhDs

Live a financially balanced life - no Real Job required

Emily

Graduate Housing Resident Advisor

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Today’s post is by a PhD student who served as a resident advisor in on-campus graduate housing. He has a great note at the end of the post about knowing when to stop doing a side job.

RamirezName: David Ramirez

University: Rice University

Department/Program:Electrical and Computer Engineering

1. What was your side or temporary job?

I was a Resident Assistant for a Graduate Housing residence.

2. How much did you earn?

I was not directly paid, instead I was allowed to live on campus graduate housing for approximately half the rent. Campus graduate housing highly prefers incoming students, thus the chances of having stayed there beyond my second year (and close to campus) would’ve been essentially zero otherwise.

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3. How did you balance your job with your graduate work?

I would read during my office hours. Any time I wasn’t doing an RA task was invested in reading. Having to be on-call over weekend nights gave some incentive/alleviated not going out at least one weekend a month.

4. Did your job complement your graduate work or advance your career?

There’s really no direct impact from that side job to my graduate work, other than a reading space. I was able to bring up my RA experience (specifically handling a fire emergency) during an interview. The company I was interviewing with is big on ‘safety’, so my experience had a big positive impact on me getting the internship.

5. How did you get started with your job?

While a resident I approached the RAs to learn how they got the job. This then helped me be on their radar, and management’s radar, for when they put out an email asking for people to apply.

6. Is there anything else you would like to share about your experience?

Being an RA for graduate housing is a lot different than being an RA for undergraduates. A lot less drama, but there’s a more serious tone to everything. Overall it was a good outlet for me to do something ‘other than research’ while still feeling productive. I do want to point out that, at some point along my PhD my time became more valuable than what I was getting paid/getting out of this experience and it was good for me to have recognized exactly when the tipping point was.

Online Freelance Academic Writer

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This grad student used an online freelancing marketplace to find academic writing jobs that paid her a nice hourly rate. She shares a great thought at the end about valuing your own work.

JohnsonName: Vicki Johnson
University: Massey University (New Zealand)
Department/Program: PhD, School of Psychology

1. What was your side or temporary job?

I was a freelancer for academic writing on Upwork (formerly Elance). I did short to long-term projects editing journal articles, analyzing qualitative data and preparing literature reviews for academic and corporate clients.

2. How much did you earn?

$50-75/hour

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3. How do/did you balance your job with your graduate work?

The beauty of Upwork is that you can apply to jobs when you are available to work, and you can choose projects of different time frames. Most of the academic writing jobs that I received were short-term – a few weeks at a time. I was careful not to take on too much work when had deadlines for my graduate work.

4. Did your job complement your graduate work or advance your career?

Absolutely! It was a great opportunity to fine tune my writing and research skills. Also, almost all of the projects I took on were outside my own discipline, so I had the opportunity to contribute to research in areas such as entrepreneurship, education, change management, and international relations.

5. How did you get started with your job?

I created a profile on Upwork with my resume, some writing samples and a professional photo. When I had no track record of experience on Upwork, I applied to many jobs with no response. Finally, I bid on a writing job for a flat fee of $200. It took more time than I preferred for the amount I was paid, but it was the perfect opportunity to get a good review on my profile and learn the ins and outs of the system. Once I got my first 5-star review, other jobs came much more easily.

6. Is there anything else you would like to share about your experience?

When working as a freelancer online it’s important to carefully choose jobs with clients who have a track record of paying money on the platform and working well with other freelancers (e.g., giving other freelancers good reviews). This is to avoid working with clients who might have unrealistic expectations or want more work than they are willing to fairly pay for. Also, do not be put off by the fact there are many other freelancers on the site bidding for the same jobs for a much lower hourly wage. I was concerned I would never land a job due to the competition, but I found there were many clients who valued quality over low costs and wanted someone with my particular academic background. Therefore I stood by my proposed price and did not waver, and I found this to be a successful strategy for winning jobs.

Vicki Johnson graduated with her PhD from Massey University in 2014 and is now a Policy & Government Affairs Manager for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. While a PhD student, she founded ProFellow, the go-to source of information on professional and academic fellowships, which now has more than 22,000 members.

Freelance Writer and Learning Consultant

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Today’s post is from Derek Attig, whose freelance and on-campus jobs during grad school helped him transition into his post-PhD career. He has a great point at the end that all grad students should apply in their lives!

AttigName: Derek Attig

Graduate Institution: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Department/Program: History

1. What were your side or temporary jobs?

I wrote for the book culture website Book Riot and worked as a teaching/learning consultant (helping grad students teach more effectively) on campus.

2. How much did you earn?

The teaching consultant job was a graduate student hourly position and paid $13.50/hour. Book Riot has a revenue sharing system where contributors are paid quarterly based on the traffic their posts generate.

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3. How did you balance your jobs with your graduate work?

I was lucky in that both of my side jobs were pretty flexible. I could write for Book Riot whenever I found time, and the teaching consultant job could adjust to fit the needs of my program. But still, it was a lot to juggle. I managed by carefully blocking out my time, assigning different time slots to different tasks, and carefully prioritizing.

4. Did your jobs complement your graduate work or advance your career?

My dissertation was on the history of print culture (bookmobiles!), so writing for Book Riot was both relevant and energizing as I worked on it. Teaching was always central to how I imagined my career (whatever that was going to be), and the teaching consultant job kept my knowledge and skills in that area sharp.

And, it turns out, they were both central to my transition from the academic job market to a non-academic job. Having Book Riot on my resume helped me land a marketing/communications job immediately after receiving the PhD. And my job now involves working with graduate students—a set of skills I honed in the consulting job.

5. How did you get started with your job?

Networking, of various kinds.

I got the Book Riot job thanks to blogging and Twitter. I had started blogging about (or, at least, adjacent to) my research when I started dissertating. Then I saw on Twitter that Book Riot wanted contributors. I used a blog post and an article I’d written for Boing Boing (a gig I picked up by through a connection I made as a Google Policy Fellow) as writing samples and got the job.

I got an interview for the teaching consultant job because I knew someone who worked in that office. The position wasn’t really advertised, but she knew about it and encouraged me to contact the supervisor. I got the job because I had extensive teaching experience and had pursued various opportunities to mentor other grad students on teaching within my department. Just one or the other might not have cut it.

6. Is there anything else you would like to share about your experience?

I’d encourage graduate students to pursue a lot of different opportunities while in school, even ones that are at a slant from what they usually do. It’s easy to get tunnel vision as a grad student, but if you open yourself up, you can develop really useful skills while reinvigorating your academic work.

Med School Learning Techniques Entrepreneur

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Today’s post is from Alex Chamessian, who leveraged a study system he developed for his own use into online passive income.  Alex has a vital message of both caution and encouragement for anyone pursuing passive income strategies while in grad school.

ChamessianName: Alex Chamessian

Graduate Institution: Duke University

Department/Program: Medical Scientist Training Program (MD-PhD)

1. What is your side income stream?

I sell digital medical spaced repetition flashcards on my personal blog DrWillBe and I just co-authored a book called Learning Medicine: An Evidence-Based Guide with my friend and colleague Dr. Peter Wei.

2. How much do you earn?

I make about $9.40 per sale on the flashcards after PayPal fees are taken out. I also pay taxes on the annual income when I do my federal taxes in April, so that’s a little more subtracted. I’ve been selling the flashcards since April 2013, with very little effort invested in marketing or promotion. Over this time, I’ve made about $5,000, with a slow drip of sales. The book is currently selling for $14.99. It’s early days so no earnings reports just yet…

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3. How did you get started with your side income stream?

As I said, I have a personal blog called DrWillBe, which is where I write about my experiences as a med student. It started out as just a sounding board for me, but over time, I realized that all my posts were about how to study effectively. So that kind of became the theme for that blog.

I wrote a lot about a powerful learning tool called Anki that I used in med school to memorize all the information that got thrown at me. Anki is a smart, digital flashcard program that employs a method called spaced repetition. During my preclinical year of medical school, I made thousands of Anki cards for my personal use. At first, I shared them for free on my blog, which generated a ton of traffic. Once I realized that those cards were bringing value to other people, it occurred to me that I could probably monetize those cards if I put some extra polish on them.

So that’s what I did. I spent some additional time cleaning up my personal cards, checking them for accuracy, and making sure there wasn’t anything copyrighted in them. Then I put them up on my blog and just left them there. I didn’t do any kind of marketing really. I picked a price that I thought was commensurate with the value of my cards ($9.99). I spent hundreds of hours making them, so that seemed like a reasonable price. Over the last two years, I’ve made about ~500 sales of those cards, with very little additional effort. I wanted this to be a passive income stream. I’d already done the heavy lifting in creating the cards. I didn’t want to sell something that needed constant tending from me.

4. How do you balance your side income stream with your graduate work?

Well, for the flashcards, I was killing two birds with one stone. I was making the cards for my own studies in medical school. It was only after I had made them for my own purposes that I decided to sell them to others. This experience highlights a key insight I’ve made about making ‘side hustle’ while in graduate school (and probably the rest of my life), which is the following: aim to take the things you’re already doing anyway and find ways to monetize those things. Usually that means adding a little extra ‘polish’ to make your stuff valuable to other people. There just aren’t enough hours in the day to do something at a high level on top what you already need to do as a grad student. Find ways to repurpose the things you’re already doing in such a way that it brings value to other people. In my case, I knew other people were trying to learn the same medical knowledge that I was, so I put a little extra effort into cleaning up my deck for public consumption, but not much more. In contrast, had I tried to do something completely random and outside my daily sphere of activities to make money, like making crafts on Etsy, I would have failed, since I didn’t have the time or the skill.

A lot of grad students might feel that their daily work is so idiosyncratic that not many people would care about it. That might be true for highly technical work, but I’m pretty sure that most grad students do something or other that there is a market for. Maybe that market isn’t huge, but it’s probably not zero. Wherever there is a pain point, there is an opportunity, because other people are feeling that pain too, most likely. Successful e-learning sites like Udemy demonstrate that people are thirsty for knowledge and are willing to pay for it.

The book was different insofar as it wasn’t directly overlapping with my daily work. This was an add-on in terms of time, but definitely not a tangent. Writing about effective learning methods enhanced all the things I do on a daily basis, like absorbing information from all the scientific articles I need to read. As with the flashcards, I was doing something that I wanted (needed?) to do for myself anyway, but doing it with the purpose of then sharing my efforts with an audience.

Writing a book is definitely hard work. In order to accomplish this, I had to develop new habits. Taking cues from successful writers, I got in the habit of waking up early (~5–6 AM) and doing my writing in the morning consistently, when I’m at my peak energy levels, and before the buzzes and demands of the world can distract me. By putting writing first thing in the day, I made it a priority, ensuring that it actually got done. I think this is key. If you care about something, whether it be a side job or a passion project (or both), you need to prioritize it.

5. Does your side income stream complement your graduate work or advance your career?

Yes. Absolutely. As I said above, the things I make my side job either flow directly from the activities of my career, or they are things that are closely related and will enhance what I do in my career.

6. Is there anything else you would like to share about your experience?

Don’t do a side job primarily for the money. Sure, more dollars in your pocket are a good thing. But your efforts might not always bring you a profit, especially if you do something risky. If you only do something for money, when and if you don’t make any, you will view your time as wasted. It’s a win-lose game. On the other hand, if you do things that you enjoy and that you would have done anyway, even if nobody ever paid you a cent, then there can’t be a bad outcome. It’s a win no matter what. If you have no customers, oh well, at least you learned or grew in some way. If you do succeed in selling your product or service to someone, great, you made some cash, but the main pay off is the learning and personal development you achieved, and the profit is a byproduct.

Connect with Alex Online

Twitter: @achamess
Personal Website: www.alexchamessian.com
Blogs: www.drwillbe.blogspot.com (medical), www.acuriousmix.com (everything else)
Book Website: www.learningmedicinebook.com

Jazz Singer

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Today’s post is by Meggan Farish on performing jazz in a local band, which is an enjoyable hobby for her as well as an income stream. She has great advice about keeping organized with your side job and how to get started as a local musician.

Meggan performing
Meggan performing

Name: Meggan Farish

Institution: Duke University

Department: History

As a graduate student, I supplement my income by performing with jazz bands. I started in 2010, while living in Columbia, SC. Columbia has a thriving jazz scene, and I began “sitting in” with various musicians. In time, I built a following and put together my own band. When I moved to Durham for graduate school, I met a saxophonist in need of a lead singer and began performing with his quintet.

I have been playing with the same musicians for years, and since our repertoire has not changed drastically and we do not spend a great deal of time rehearsing, playing music takes up very little of my life (maybe two Fridays per month). The gigs in SC are generally more time consuming since I have to travel, but I would likely visit home that often regardless and am at a place in my graduate career where I can work from just about anywhere.

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My advice to anyone thinking of making music a side job is to be prepared for the vicissitudes of performing in a local band. Promotional shows do not always pay, and regular gigs can get nixed with little to no warning. I recently lost a gig I had for several years because the restaurant needed to make cutbacks. It is a nice way to supplement my income, but I do not rely on it to pay my bills. Networking, having good YouTube videos (preferably at least one polished studio recording), and maintaining a presence in social media to promote your skills are all key to being a successful local artist. Additionally, it is critical to keep track of scheduled performances and to show up prepared and on time. Forgetting a gig or being late will quickly kill a career in music. Also, keep accurate records of your income and set aside a percentage to cover your state and federal income taxes. Typically, you will receive a 1099 at year-end from the establishments where you or your band perform.

While it is doubtful that music will advance my career as a historian, I believe it has made my years of rigorous graduate study far more enjoyable. If anything, it has allowed me a much-needed break from my studies and provided an avenue to meet new people.

University Fitness Instructor

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Today’s post is from an anonymous contributor. Her side job was very convenient for her based on its location and nature!

source
source

1.     What was your side or temporary job?

Fitness instructor at my university

2.     How much did you earn?

~$16/hr

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3.     How did you balance your job with your graduate work?

I work out anyway, so this was just like getting paid for something that I would do anyway!

4.     Did your job complement your graduate work or advance your career?

It did not complement my graduate work, but it helped me keep my sanity!  Exercise is a huge stress reliever for me and I got to meet some really amazing people who frequented my class, so I made new friends, too.

5.     How did you get started with your job?

One of my friends in the same graduate program started being a fitness instructor before me and I would attend her classes.  She mentioned that I would probably enjoy teaching as well, so I talked to the coordinator at the university gym.  She had a few teaching time slots that weren’t filled, so she asked me if I wanted to teach those slots.  I got certified through online training and started teaching the following semester.