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This PhD Developed His SciComm Career Through Side Hustling

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In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Gaius Augustus, a PhD in cancer biology and habitual side hustler. Gaius combines his artistic talent and knowledge of science to communicate science visually and teaches others to do the same. Within Emily’s framework of side hustles, Gaius details the half-dozen side hustles he pursued during graduate school and how they have contributed to his personal and professional development. He has now turned one of his grad school side hustles into a full-fledged side business in his post-PhD life. In this discussion, Gaius shares his hard-win insights into time management, self-advocacy, and imposter syndrome. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to advance her career through side hustling, networking, or volunteering.

Links Mentioned in the Episode

science communication side hustle

Teaser

00:00 Gaius: When I started doing this I just went to the office and said, look, I need extra money and this is the way that I’ve found to make extra money and I’m still going to get my work done and I expect you to hold me to that, but this is something I have to do.

Introduction

00:23 Emily: Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs podcast, a higher education in personal finance. I’m your host, Emily Roberts. This is season three, episode 10 and today my guest is Dr. Gaius Augustus, a PhD in cancer biology, artist and side hustler. During grad school, Gaius pursued half a dozen different side hustles, which contributed to his personal and professional development as well as financial bottom line. In what is now his side business, he combines his love of science and his artistic talent and training to communicate science visually through figures, graphical abstracts, infographics and more and teaches others to do the same. In this discussion, Gaius shares his hard-won insights into time management, self advocacy, and imposter syndrome. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Gaius Augustus.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

01:15 Emily: My guest on the podcast today is Dr. Gaius Augustus, and he’s going to be talking to us about his history with side hustling and how that’s actually turned into a side business, which is very exciting. Gaius, will you please introduce yourself a little bit further? Let us know more about who you are.

01:34 Gaius: Sure. Thank you so much for having me, Emily. I actually have a kind of interesting past. I have my PhD in cancer biology, but I actually started out as an artist and in high school. I went to a fine arts high school, I loved the arts, and I actually got really into comic making and video production. When I left high school, I actually went for film and television at a fine arts university. I ended up leaving that because the culture wasn’t quite right. I went into retail and worked retail for about five years. While I was working retail, I got some experience in the pharmacy. I was like, oh, this is pretty cool, I could make a living as a pharmacist. And I was really kind of missing the science part of my life.

02:25 Gaius: And so I decided to go back to school for pharmacy and joined a lab and just fell in love with the scientific process. I got my bachelor’s in 2014 in integrative studies, which is a kind of design your own degree program where you can mix from different disciplines. I mixed biology, chemistry and a little bit of psychology. Then I went straight into a PhD program at the Arizona Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program at University of Arizona, which is an umbrella program, again so that I could choose a program within that. Then I joined the cancer biology program in 2015. I literally, two weeks ago, April 2019, defended my PhD, and now I am trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life.

03:26 Emily: Yeah! Fantastic. I love to hear that non-traditional route to the PhD. It’s definitely going to inform the rest of our conversation today.

Why Did You Side Hustle During Your PhD?

Emily: Throughout your progress through the PhD and maybe even before that you have been a side hustler, habitual side hustler. Why did you start side hustling during your PhD?

03:51 Gaius: I want to say that when I was an artist, I took science classes for fun in high school and everyone thought I was crazy. Again, I was at a fine arts high school. When I went back to school for science, I thought, okay, this is it, right? I’ve always missed the science. Here it is. But then as I got into science more, I realized I really missed the art. And I never really thought there was a way to balance that. I thought, okay, well these are just two separate things that I have to do. During my PhD I started thinking, okay, is there a way to mix this? So I started with just like making comics where I anthropomorphize science topics and wrote those comics and never really to share, just to have them.

04:39 Gaius: As I started going on and people started being interested in those types of things, I started thinking this is pretty cool that people are interested, but I never really thought about making money with it. So along the same time, my partner, who is not in grad school or a scientist and is an artist who has been making money in our new city as an artist, was thinking about how we can make a little bit of extra money besides just what I make for my grad school stipend and something that was a little different than them having to go get a traditional job.

05:18 Gaius: We actually started our first big side hustle, which was starting a kind of art, crafty sort of side our business, which I’ll talk about a little bit more later. Along with that, when I started talking to people about that, people were really interested in that, and they were very interested in the fact that I had been an artist. As I got interested in science communication about two years ago, the people that I was talking to about that were also like, hey, you can also do this cool artsy stuff. How can we fit that in? I started by just doing infographics, and I wanted to learn animation for fun. So I just was like, if I can figure out animation in time for whatever your deadline is, then let’s do that.

06:06 Gaius: I was actually hired by the University of Arizona Cancer Center to create infographics and animations when I could. Animations weren’t difficult because I had some experience in the past with it. It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be to get back into that. From there, people just start hearing about it. The more people heard about it, the more people were interested in it. So I was like, I guess I can make money doing this. That would be really awesome because I could do both art and science and learn about lots of cool science. That’s really what motivated me to start. Just knowing that there’s a possibility to make money was like the original thought, but then learning that I could do something I really loved and make money doing, it was a really big reason for me to push a little bit harder.

06:59 Emily: I really love that story. I’m so happy we’re going to go even more in depth with it in a moment. Because it seems so organic. You weren’t simply out to make extra money, although that’s a very welcome side benefit and maybe an important benefit. But it was just, what do you want to spend your time doing? Where are your interests leading you? Also you’re kind of responding to the market, right? Like you were, I’m putting some things out there, oh, and people are responding and it leads me over in this direction and then it leads me over here. I’m excited to hear even more about that.

07:38 Gaius: Something I find really interesting is I remember in my undergrad talking to one of my advisors. He always talked about how intentional his path was. I was always really jealous of how intentional everything he had done and all the types of things he had tried in order to reach where he was at that point. I still think about it all the time, that he was always saying making intentional choices to get to where you are. My life has been the complete opposite. It’s just been chaos. It’s more been like, what opportunities are available? Let’s take it, let’s move on to the next one. But still, if you allow yourself to not think of those things that you’ve done as mistakes and instead think of them as intentional choices that you made that have led you to this path, I think it’s really a good way to get yourself into new opportunities and use everything that you’ve done in your path to inform what you do with your life right now.

08:41 Emily: Yeah, you’re using the word intentional, which is like, everyone can get behind that. Like of course you want to make choices that are well considered, but I think what your professor was saying was more like a linear path, right? Like, like straightforward and efficient.

09:01 Gaius: And forward-thinking. I think he was thinking, okay, 20 years in the future, this is where I want to be, I think that was more what he thought he was saying. Whereas I think like you were about to say, you just want to make choices that you are intentional about in that moment. You mean to make the choice that you make with whatever hardships you have right now or whenever you’re dealing with right now, you make what choices you can and go forward with those.

09:29 Emily: Yeah, absolutely. Not that your professor’s path was a bad one if he’s happy with the outcome of course. But there are plenty of people who set out on a path and keep at it for decades and aren’t happy with the outcome even though they were very intentional and they were very efficient. That definitely depends more on your personality. It’s about knowing yourself really. I’m so happy to hear about your journey as a counterpoint to that.

Side Hustling Framework for PhDs

Emily: You already mentioned a couple different side hustles that you’ve had going on and also were starting to say how that’s led your current business. I have this framework that I like to use when I talk about side hustling, which is that side hustles, let’s say for a grad student, can fall into one of four categories or maybe even multiple of four categories.

10:19 Emily: The first is what I call “career-advancing.” So a side hustle, and again, these all make money in some capacity or another, but it’s letting you explore a new career area or maybe it’s expanding your network or maybe it’s demonstrating skills or learning new skills. Something that we think is going to advance your career. That doesn’t have to be your scientific career. It could just be whatever else you want to do. So there’s that. The second one is an enjoyable hobby that you happen to be able to monetize. It’s something you enjoy doing, not even necessarily a hobby, but just an activity that you enjoy that you happen to be able to monetize. The third category is that you don’t enjoy this activity at all, but it does pay you.

11:04 Emily: So I’m thinking this is like, well, you mentioned working retail earlier. I don’t know if that’s your passion. It doesn’t sound like it ended up being the route you went, but that’s also something a lot of grad students do just for extra income and I doubt it’s very career-advancing or enjoyable. The last one is passive income, which may be a little bit unfamiliar to people who are not in the entrepreneurial space. Basically in those first three paradigms, I’m assuming that you’re trading your time for money more or less directly. With passive income, it’s more about investing a lot of time, money, energy, or creativity to create a product that then sells over time. The very classic example is of an author. You write a book, and then the book sells. Over time you get those royalties. This is complicated a little bit with advances and we won’t go into that, but that’s kind of the idea. You put a lot of time and energy into something and then you sell it over time. So thinking about that framework, which we’ll link from the show notes: Put the side hustles that you’ve had into those different buckets, if you would.

12:11 Gaius: Yeah, sounds good. I thought about this from, should I talk about each one individually or should I talk about the framework? I think that the framework is so well designed or so well thought out that I’m just going to talk about it from the framework side.

Career-Advancing

Gaius: When I think about career-advancing, I’m thinking about networking. Like you said, it doesn’t have to be scientific, but it can be about growing your network and people who can help you find jobs in the future. So, like I said, I worked for the University of Arizona Cancer Center. I made infographics and animations and did some writing for them as well. That was definitely career advancing. I met so many people through that. I actually did six months of work for them volunteer, so I wasn’t getting paid at all. And then I did six months where I was getting paid, but that was a great career-advancer as far as meeting everyone at the university and people who potentially I could work for in the future.

13:20 Emily: I actually have a follow up question on that one because that sounded fantastic from the first time you brought it up. I was so excited about it. How did you get into that position? It sounds like it started with volunteering, but how did you initiate that volunteer relationship?

13:36 Gaius: One of the hardest things I think all of us have to do as graduate students is promote ourselves. Right? You have to promote yourself when you learn to write grants, you have to promote yourself when you tell your PI about your cool new experiment that you want to try that costs a lot more money than your PI maybe thinks it’s worth. I actually was helping with website design. I used to do freelance web design on the side of working retail. Like you said, I’m a longtime side hustler. So I was helping my department with redesigning their website and in order to get a better idea of what they needed, they pulled in the PR person from the Cancer Center. We just were having conversations because I show up to meetings on time and he shows up to meetings on time and academics don’t.
14:28 Gaius: We were just having conversations before all of our meetings, and I mentioned that I was looking into science communication. Finally one day he was just like, you should come work with us. I’m not sure I have a budget, but I really like what you’re saying. So it was totally me just talking about things I liked and being willing to talk about myself and what I do and what I think I do well and someone being willing to say, okay, well I want to take a chance on you and give you more experience and get a volunteer to help me out to get that opportunity.

15:09 Emily: It’s very clear from that story that this was about networking. You volunteered your skills at the small circle of your initial network, which was your department, and that led you to a slightly wider network and more opportunities there. That sounds amazing. This is a bit more of a financial or technical question, but I’m just curious about how being hired by the cancer center, the PR wing, played with your stipend. Was that in addition to it? Was that all kosher at the university level? Were you hired as an independent contractor? What were all the details there?

15:46 Gaius: At the time I was on an NIH training grant. There were a lot of discussions between the department and the Cancer Center about how that was going to work. Apparently they looked into the fellowship and made sure that there was no language saying I couldn’t get paid. Then what they did was they just said, okay, well we can only pay you up to a certain number of hours because you’re a student worker. What this person did was just found the best offer he could as far as an hourly pay where I could kind of maximize my income under the guidelines that were currently there. He was a really big advocate for me and I really appreciate that. But there was definitely some arguments and conversations that had to happen between the university and the cancer center and my department.

16:44 Emily: Clearly. In addition to just the pay issue, which it sounds like that’s a very specific solution for the training grant you were on and so forth. How did your advisor feel about you…? Because a lot of people keep their side hustles quiet, right? They don’t let their advisor or other people know about it. But clearly your advisor must have known about this from the beginning or early on. How did that go over?

17:08 Gaius: This is going to go back to kind of self advocacy again. I worked in retail for five years, and in retail there is no self-advocacy. You do what you’re told, and if you don’t, anyone could have your job or at least that’s what they tell you even when it’s not true. I’d had some really, really horrible bosses and really horrible experiences in retail. When I started back in school, one of my goals was never to be treated like that again. When I got into grad school and started thinking about doing on the side… Sadly it was never a question of is my PI going to be okay with this. When I chose a PI, I was very straightforward and saying I’m kind of going to do what I want to do and I need your support and how do you feel about that?

18:05 Gaius: And he was like, you know, I want to do what’s best for you and your career, and I will work with you. Wo when I started doing this, I just went to the office and said, look, I need extra money and this is the way that I’ve found to make extra money and I’m still going to get my work done. I expect you to hold me to that, but this is something I have to do. He was very worried about me and very worried about whether I was going to be able to keep doing it, but he supported me and never questioned it. He just made a couple of like side glances, but then it was just like, do what you got to do.

18:46 Emily: Yeah. You finished in five years it sounds like. So this didn’t end up tacking on any extra time at minimum. This is a great tip for anyone who has not yet chosen an advisor: to find someone who is going to be supportive of your career broadly defined – however you want to define your career. That person should be supportive, or if they’re not, know that early on and don’t work with them unless you’re 100% on the tenure track. I’m really glad that you described like your relationship with that person and how that worked out. That was so much detail, but that was such an exciting side hustle.

Emily: What’s the next one on your list?

19:24 Gaius: One thing that I’ve been doing a lot over just the past like six months is a lot of freelance sci art. I’ve been doing infographics, graphical abstracts, animations for scientists, for departments. That’s been extremely fun, but it’s also been a great networking experience. A lot of the time, I work with someone and then someone who they know is like, oh, this person told me that you are great to work with, I would like to work with you too. As far as career-advancing steps, the sci art, freelance, and I’ve done a little bit of writing as well has really helped with getting that networking done and also giving me the confidence that I needed to say people do enjoy my work. Also, they’re not just hiring me because they like me because strangers are hiring me. Those have been my big career-advancing hustles.

20:21 Emily: Yeah, that sounds like so much fun as you just said. If people want to see your work, where’s the best place to go?

20:28 Gaius: All of my work is available on my website, which is gaiusjaugustus.com, which I hope you’ll put in the notes since it’s not always the easiest to spell. If you also search Gaius Divi Filius on Twitter, you can see me and get to my website. I’m on Instagram as Process of InQUEERy with inquiry spelled with “queer” in the middle. I am on Facebook with Process of Inqueery as well.

20:55 Emily: I wanted to put that in the middle of the episode instead of just at the end so that people can go and look at your stuff as they’re continuing to listen to this conversation. I would imagine that just by the nature of what you did with that particular side hustle of it being art, it sounds like it’s incredibly shareable. You chose something where networking is easy. If you do a great job, people are going to ask who’s behind that work.

21:17 Gaius: It’s interesting you say that because I’ve never thought about that before. I’m a very visual person. I struggled to learn science because it was reading the books and reading articles and I do so much better when I started reframing it as look at the results and then try and frame your scientific ideas around the results and then read the articles and see if they agree with you. Same with learning science, go and look at the pictures in the chapter, try and figure out what they mean and then read the text and make sure I’m getting on the right track. I’ve just always been that kind of visual person. I’m drawing, in class, ideas out since I was little. So it’s interesting. I hadn’t really thought about the fact that people just see it and it automatically gives a good networking side of things.

22:09 Emily: Yeah. You’re much more in touch with the sci comm community than I am. But when I think of science communication, I initially think about the written word. I don’t go to to video or to art or anything, but maybe it’s a bigger component of it that I realize. Anyway, I just think it’s a really wonderful way of communicating that may be undertapped at this point.

22:35 Gaius: I agree completely. I think you hit the nail on the head about how most people feel about sci comm.

Commercial

22:43 Emily: This summer. I’m putting forth extra support for PhDs undergoing career transitions into grad school, a post doc or a real job. If you’re moving onto the next stage in your career or thinking about it, please visit pfforphds.com/next to check out my articles, webinars and coaching program. Allow me to come alongside you during this transition to ensure that you set yourself up for financial success.

Enjoyable Activity or Hobby

23:13 Emily: What’s the next side hustle? Any monetized hobbies?

23:18 Gaius: On the enjoyable category, one of the big ones is the side hustle that I started initially with my partner. We’re pagan and we love making stuff. As we were making things for us, we just decided to bring that to a broader audience. We actually make resin jewelry. We make pagan goods, things that maybe you would find in your house or things you might want to wear out to just kind of show off pagan pride as well as just things that everyone uses but instead of looking at it from just a regular angle, we say how would we look at this from a pagan angle? Recently my partner made plushes and instead of an animal or something, they made crystal balls.

24:12 Gaius: So stuff like that. We make a lot of the resin jewelry, but we’re also kind of pushing that a little bit further now into other things like plushes and shirts and things like that. That’s all through theindigopath.com, which if you go to is not anything yet. We took down our shop to do a bunch of conventions and things like that and we’re rebuilding it to put up our new branding and things like that. But that’s been something that’s just been pure enjoyment. It’s paying for itself, but that’s about it at this point.

24:47 Emily: Yeah. I love that you found something that you could do with your partner. Just something fun that’s a bonding experience or a fun project to work on together. I’m sure that it has relational benefits as well as the potential monetary benefits and just something enjoyable to do with your time. Although it does not sound like you are hard pressed for things to do with your time! Plenty going on already. What’s next in your list?

It Pays But It’s Not Enjoyable

25:10 Gaius: The next is the “it pays, but I don’t necessarily enjoy it.” The big one for me is web design. I do love web design, but I don’t necessarily like doing web design for other people. I love playing around with it for myself. I’ve been doing it for years and like I said I used to do it freelance. It pays the bills. When people want or need help with their website, I can get people up and running quickly. I can do trainings so that people can understand it. I was also a cheap sell for my department to be able to redo their website for very, very low pay. That’s probably my best example of something that pays, but it’s not necessarily the thing that I want to be doing with the rest of my life.

25:59 Emily: Yeah. Well it sounds like you should increase your rates on that. Do less of it, but get more out of what you do.

26:06 Gaius: Yes. You’re probably right.

Passive Income

26:07 Emily: Anything else in that category or should we move on to the passive one?

26:14 Gaius: Oh, let’s move on to the passive, which I’m really excited about, but also very skeptical about because I know that there is a lot of talk in my blogs about whether you should do passive income or whether you should wait until you have a following to do passive income. I’ll just tell you what I do. One thing that I do is I write blog articles for my website. I actually started doing that because I was part of the Grad Blogger Connect Group on Facebook led by Chris Coney, and I just decided to start this blog. It was the first thing I ever did to do any science communication, before I worked for the cancer center or anything. I just put ads in there, and I think I have like a $1.20 in my ads account. So it’s never really made me anything but it’s there. But because I’ve written the blog articles, those will continue to be there and when my site blows up in the near future and people are reading those articles a lot, those ads hopefully will make some income at some point.

27:21 Emily: Is this the same website that you mentioned earlier?

27:23 Gaius: Yes, it is the same website.

27:25 Emily: Okay, great. Glad to hear it’s all integrated together.

27:29 Gaius: Yeah, that was something I really wanted, but it’s very difficult to do the more side hustles you try. You have to figure out how to get all that branding to work together. The other thing actually, which is also on the same website, is I have a shop of just designs on T-shirts and pillows and things like that. I knew I wanted to do that because I love making up T-shirt designs. As part of The Indigo Path, we constantly are buying iron-on stuff to make designs. The shop doesn’t use my iron-ons, they are actually professionally printed. But I do like the idea of having a totally customized wardrobe. The shop has a lot of cool science-y themed designs. This is passive. I make the designs, I put them up in the shop. If somebody likes it, they buy it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a week from now or a year from now, I’ll still get hopefully about the same cut on that. I put in that up-front work. Whatever money I make down the road comes from the initial work that I put into making those designs.

28:44 Emily: Yeah. I don’t know if I told you this, but that shop was the reason that I invited you on the podcast. I saw that as a potentially passive income stream and I was like, alright, I need to talk to this guy.

29:01 Gaius: The shop feels to me like the dark secret of my website, because even though it’s up front, I don’t really advertise it that much. Bbut I just love making designs and putting them on stuff. Especially all over prints, which I don’t actually have that many of on the site, but I am obsessed with all over prints. So I make them, I put them up there and I don’t promote it but I think that it’s really cool and it’s probably one of the favorite things that I do.

29:34 Emily: Yeah. Like you said earlier, there’s talk about when to introduce potentially passive streams of income and so forth to your business, but it just sounds like the perfect medley of some of the other things we’ve talked about. It uses your unique skills and your unique subject area interests. It’s just something that you enjoy doing and you threw up the end result online. If people want to come and find it, cool. I think what’s interesting about passive income though, especially when we’re talking about web-based businesses, is that it’s not really ever truly passive. If no one came to your site, if you weren’t driving traffic to your site from other means, then no one would ever find it and no one would ever buy it. It’s really not truly passive because you have to still be active online and somehow trying to get traffic to your site, such as by doing podcast interviews! But anyway, your time is decoupled from what money you make from it. So that’s what makes it passive.

30:33 Gaius: Definitely. And I will say that if you put your work up on other websites, it can be more passive. Etsy is that if you get your hashtags right, so there’s some up front work as usual, but if you get your hashtags right, you really figure out the game on Etsy, you can do pretty passive income. As soon as you move into a realm where like you said, you have to drive traffic, then it becomes less passive. But it’s still way more passive than a lot of the work that I do. If you’re already creating things, in some ways there’s no drawback. If I’m already creating these designs to put on T-shirts for myself, at some point there’s no drawback to just putting it up for other people to have as well.

31:24 Gaius: That’s in my mind the great time to do passive income if you don’t have a lot of following, is to do things like you said, that you already enjoy and you’re already doing. I caution people when they’re like, I’m going to build this entire course and do all these things into it. It’s been a year developing it and I don’t even know whether people are going to sign up for it. No one knows who I am. That’s when it’s like, well if you really love designing courses and you’re really passionate about this, then that’s great. But as far as passive income is concerned, that year of work may take a lot longer to come back to you.

32:04 Emily: Yeah. If anyone in the audience is interested in passive income and you haven’t yet heard of Pat Flynn, please go check him out right now. His brand is Smart Passive Income. This story just reminded me of his origin story. He was an architect and studying for some kind of licensing exam. As he was studying, he created a study guide, and when he was done and he passed the exam, he put the study guide up online for sale. It sold like gangbusters, apparently surprising everyone, including him. That was the start of his passive income empire. As you were just saying, if you can put in 5 or 10% more work and make something that you’ve already created for yourself something that other people could use, why not go ahead and just see what happens. You haven’t invested any time that you wouldn’t have otherwise. There’s really no downside there.

Benefits and Detriments of Side Hustling During Grad School

Emily: I want to speed through the next set of questions, which is, what are the general benefits that you’ve experienced by side hustling during graduate school and the downsides or the detriments? Anything that we haven’t already covered?

33:10 Gaius: I think the biggest upside is just having that creative outlet. I also think for other people the greatest benefit is being able to try things out before you decide to switch careers, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m thinking of leaving academia, and as soon as I started thinking about leaving academia, I was like, oh my God, if I don’t do academia, what do I do? Do I have to go back to retail? That was a big enough push to try out other things and see what happens and to see if building this kind of business model is possible. The downsides really are the commitment that you have less free time. I feel like I’m always working and have to schedule off time to say, okay, I’m really going to go do other things. It can slowly take over. It can become really fun and a good excuse to not do schoolwork. I know people already have problems with procrastination. So you do have to be very intentional about how you do it, and it does have the possibility of growing out of control. You really have to think hard about what you’re doing, when you’re doing it, and how much.

34:25 Emily: Yeah, that’s a great point. It’s actually something that I experienced during graduate school. I wouldn’t call the blog that I had at that time necessarily a side hustle, but it was certainly a time intensive hobby that brought in money a little bit. I was not very thoughtful at the time about why I was spending so much time on my blog instead of doing my work. It turns out finance is much more of a passion for me than my specific research area, no surprise now, but it was at the time. As you just said, be really thoughtful and be balanced, because financially having a side hustle can help you a lot with your cash flow during grad school. What’s not going to help you is delaying your graduation and delaying getting a full time job or launching a full time business or whatever the next thing is for you.

35:19 Gaius: I actually purposefully delayed writing my dissertation until the latest I could. I could’ve graduated probably nine months earlier, but I just kept pushing it because I knew that I would have that income and I was like, well at least I know I have income and so I’ll just keep pushing it until I can’t push it anymore. That was not smart.

35:43 Emily: I see what you’re saying because you were, as you just mentioned, thinking, do I have to go back to retail if I don’t have another job lined up? So certainly that’s a reasonable thing to be afraid of. I don’t want to graduate before I have something lined up. That’s a total thing that people might delay for that reason. But as you were exploring those other options, you are actively working on it, you weren’t just work like, oh no, I’m afraid to graduate and I’m not making any progress in actually getting to a point where I want to graduate, therefore I’m going to delay. It’s an understandable path.

Emily: Now, as I understand, you’ve just defended and you’re looking for a full time job, but you’re also now developing a side business, which is weaving together some of the different things that we’ve talked about so far. Can you talk about a little bit of the mindset shift from going from I’m a PhD student first and a side hustler second to now I’m starting a business.

36:44 Gaius: For me it was less of a change as far as I’m a PhD student to I’m a business owner and more of a shift in thinking about how other people saw me. So seeing people be like, oh Gaius draws cool stuff. This is really neat. Can you draw something for me? Going from that to wow, your work is really amazing. I would love to pay you to do it. That was a really huge jump for me. Like I said, I started out in art school, I took my first art classes like in eighth grade to start on my art career. I was always going through this thinking I’m never going to be good enough, and this is the first time that I ever thought, I am good enough to make art my living. I think having that kind of self confidence was really the big shift for me. The business side, because I’d been doing these other side hustles like The Indigo Path, it wasn’t really that hard for me, but just understanding that people appreciated me and that I was worth it and I was talented enough. That was a huge hurdle for me.

38:05 Emily: Yeah. Sounds like imposter syndrome, something we are so familiar with.

38:09 Gaius: I don’t know what you’re talking about!

38:11 Emily: It can definitely crop up in other areas besides your PhD work. That goes back to the self-advocacy theme from earlier. It’s just a different application of it. I’m really glad to hear that you’re progressing on that front and defeating your gremlins.

Last Advice for a Grad Student Side Hustler

Emily: In the last minute or so we have here, do you have any advice for another graduate student pursuing side hustling, interested in pursuing side hustling, that we haven’t already covered? We have covered so much. But did you have anything else you want to throw in there?

38:44 Gaius: No. The main thing I want to stress over and over again is that you have to balance your time. I highly suggest anyone who’s in grad school to have some kind of side passion. It doesn’t have to make you money, though it’s great if it does. Really think about how much time you’re spending, why are you doing it, why are you continuing in your PhD or grad program or whatever, and make sure that all of those things are happening in the right amount of time and the right doses as well as for the right reasons. Because the ultimate goal is for you to find a balance that makes you happy, not for any other reason. As long as you’re happy and reducing your stress overall and not just delaying your stress, I think you’re in the right place, but that balance is really important.

39:39 Emily: Oh yeah. Thank you so much for emphasizing that. Thank you so much for being my guest today.

39:44 Gaius: Thank you for having me.

Outtro

39:46 Emily: Listeners, I’m so glad you joined us for today’s episode pfforphds.com/podcast is the hub for the Personal Finance for PhDs podcast. There you can find links to all the episode show notes, a form to volunteer to be interviewed, a survey, and a way to join the mailing list. I’d love for you to check it out and get more involved. See you in the next episode! The music is stages of awakening by Paddington bear from the free music archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing and show notes creation by Jewel Lipps.

How Finances During Grad School Affected This PhD’s Career Path

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In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Scott Kennedy, a bioengineering PhD who now works at a start-up in a data science position. During the course of his PhD, Scott got married and had two children. While he hadn’t considered personal finance of great importance when he started grad school, he certainly did by the end. Scott considered pursuing a tenure-track faculty position, but ultimately took an industry position because the salary and location better supported his young family. This conversation around Scott’s reflection on his financial path during grad school is excellent food for thought for an early-career PhD considering different career and family formation options.

Links mentioned in episode

grad_student_family_career

0:00 Introduction

1:20 Please Introduce Yourself

Dr. Scott Kennedy has an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering. He became interested in neuroscience of motor control and the neural basis of body movement. He went to the University of Pittsburgh and received a PhD in Bioengineering. His adviser was in the neuroscience department.

As Scott neared the end of graduate school, he began to explore options outside of academia that made use of his skillset. He took a job as a machine learning engineer at a startup in St. Louis, Missouri. He is enjoying the transition out of academia and into startup culture. Scott adds that you have to be creative about how your skills apply outside of academia, because graduate school training typically funnels you into academic careers.

6:25 Tell us about your family.

Scott got married in 2013, during his third year of graduate school. He says they knew they didn’t want to wait until after graduate school to start their family. They had two daughters while Scott was a PhD student. He says his adviser was supportive and he had examples of other parents in the lab.

8:40 What does your wife do? What was her job while you were in graduate school?

Scott says he met his wife in Pittsburgh when she was finishing her physical therapy degree. His wife started working as a pediatric physical therapist before they got married. Their combined income was enough for them to live comfortably. After they had children, Scott’s wife wanted to stay home but his graduate stipend was not enough money to support the family. His wife started working part time but they had to be very conscious about their finances.

10:11 When you started graduate school, what was your interest in personal finance?

Scott says he was fairly naive but he had interest. He says at the end of undergrad, he developed a spreadsheet to track his spending. Although he kept a budget, he didn’t have any financial goals. He wasn’t thinking about saving for retirement. He had some savings tucked away but for no reason. He was focused on simple living.

Emily shares that she was in a similar place when she was in graduate school. However, she had this sense of “doing the right thing” with her money and that motivated her to learn. Scott shares a story about his friend who was shocked that he didn’t have a Roth IRA yet. Scott thought investing was for people with money, then he learned that he should start during graduate school.

14:40 What was your transformation process into someone who cares about personal finance?

Scott says his first step was saving for retirement. Then, he wanted to purchase an engagement ring and pay for a wedding. He saw that his savings, his safety net, was being drained. He realized that he had to become more serious about budgeting and manage finances in partnership with his wife. He says personal finance is a balance between living your life, having goals, and having security. He adds that childcare was another big factor. Cost of childcare is about the same cost as rent.

17:27 What frugal strategies did you put in place to adjust to the new expenses?

Scott emphasizes that they leaned on their families a lot. They were fortunate to have families willing to support them and help them travel, but their vacations were to go home to see family. At home, they spent time at friends’ houses and chose very low cost entertainment options. They stopped going out to eat and would go for a run instead of having a gym memberships. Scott says that taking little steps adds up in savings in the long run.

20:34 How did finances during graduate school affect your career path?

Scott says two years before he graduated he thought carefully about what he wanted to do. Before he started graduate school, he thought he wanted to work in engineering and rehabilitation. He fell in love with science and could see himself being an academic and working as a professor. He felt like he wanted to go that route until he saw one of the graduate students from his lab defend, work as a postdoc, and apply to jobs while also having a family. He said there was a research faculty member in the lab as well who had a family and was having a hard time getting a faculty job. Scott says there were also stories of professors who got divorces during the tenure process.

Scott says he didn’t feel like he was able to support a family through a postdoc and a search for a faculty position. He says that even if everything worked out for him, his kids would have been in high school by the time he got tenure. He shares that this was difficult for him to comes to term with. After he realized this, he started to look for jobs outside of academia.

25:49 Are you happy in the startup job you have now?

Scott says he’s happy in his position now because he has freedom, flexibility, and autonomy in his work. He feels he works on interesting problems. He can work with leadership and have a more say in the work than you can as a graduate student. The location in St. Louis is closer to his family.

26:54 If you could go back and give yourself financial advice, what would that be?

Scott says he would tell himself to have goals in mind. He would tell himself to have an emergency fund and build it up. He says he would build savings for housing and consider buying a house to build equity. Scott says thinking ahead for childcare options, if at all possible, would have been a gamechanger for them.

Scott admits that as an early graduate student, it’s hard to know what your goals are. He advises that to the extent you can, think a couple years ahead. He says have saving goals and investment goals.

Emily advises that people at least consider buying a house if you’re in a place with a housing market that makes sense for graduate student budgets. She also says that it’s a reasonable assumption that anyone’s financial responsibilities will increase over time. Graduate school is a fairly long period of time and chances are that you will have more responsibilities.

32:17 Final Comments

Scott shares that he didn’t expect the number of weddings and the cost of going to them. He says that he regrets not being able to go to some weddings. Scott advises to find balance between living your life and having savings so that you can have buffers and cushions so you have money for unexpected expenses.

34:45 Conclusion

This Online Entrepreneur Turned His PhD Research into a Thriving Business

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In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Chris Cloney, an engineering PhD turned online entrepreneur. Chris blogged about his research during graduate school, became recognized as an expert in his field, and subsequently launched his research company. Through Gradblogger, Chris now leverages his vast knowledge of online business practices to help other PhDs start their own blogs and businesses.

Links mentioned in episode

PhD online entrepreneur

0:00 Introduction

1:01 Please Introduce Yourself

Dr. Chris Cloney has two businesses, Dust Safety Science and Gradblogger. Chris did his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He did his PhD in Chemical Engineering and Applied Science, but his focus was Industrial Safety within the subfield of Process Engineering. He worked nearly full time in an engineering company while he was working on his PhD. He left the job to focus full time on getting his PhD.

Chris calls himself a personal development geek, as well as a personal finance geek. When he left his job, he was intending to switch careers. His job was focused on military and explosions, and he wanted to switch to paths to industrial safety.

5:27 Can you give us an overview of your primary business, Dust Safety Science?

Chris says his thesis was on Industrial Safety, specifically fire and explosion safety in industries. He only deals with solid particle fires and explosions. He points to Apple MacBooks, for example, which are coated in aluminum polish. He explains that thousands are made each day in factories and the process generates tons of aluminum dust. The aluminum dust is a fire and explosion hazard if it is not managed properly.

He started blogging in this area at “My Dust Explosion Research” but after a couple years, he changed names to “Dust Safety Science” because it is a little easier to say. The business is online and they have four key pillars: awareness, education, connection, and change. One big motivator is to keep people from being injured, so awareness and education of safety science is important. The goal of Dust Safety Science is zero fatalities over twenty years, so they advocate at an industrial and governmental level worldwide.

7:41 What is the structure of Dust Safety Science?

Chris says Dust Safety Science started as just him, as most online businesses start with just one person. They have a website as a platform to bring people back to. They have an incident database where they track fire and explosions around the world. This is how they create material as a research company to publish on and present on at conferences. They conduct independent research as well. He has a podcast for Dust Safety Science.

Chris brought on his first help in 2017 at one hour a week. The team today is four core members. There is a content manager, virtual research assistant, technical writer, and website designer. Chris says it is a big transition from learning everything about personal branding and business to managing a team. They publish 500 blog posts a year, and this requires a healthy structure to run this research business.

Chris works from home and his businesses are his sole source of income. His team is virtual. He shares that he has a seven month old and his wife is home on maternity leave. He has his office at home.

11:44 Why did your blog turn into your business?

Chris says creating a personal brand, building online business, and being seen as the expert in an area is actually quite available to people who have higher degrees. He says one of the first steps for online marketing is to niche down really small, and Chris says that’s the definition of thesis research. He says six people read your thesis and three might actually care.

Chris was blogging about his PhD research. He says the academics in his field weren’t online and didn’t care for his blog, but industry people were interested so he started to make content for that audience. After six or nine months of blogging, he realized he had a good platform built. He was being invited to speak and he was seen as the expert in this topic. He got several job offers just from blogging about his topic. His goal was to switch careers and that was a success. He decided to focus on his online platform and build an independent research company.

14:13 How do you make money?

Chris says step one is to ask people for money. He says he had a newsletter with 250 people on it. The first time he made money online was by emailing a company and asking them if they’d like to put their logo and description in the newsletter in a sponsor block. He said he sent the email to the company, and he got a quick reply saying yes. He’d forgot to mention there was a fee of $200 per month, so he added that in the next email. The company representative said they’d take a year of sponsorship, and Chris realized that his price was too low.

He says his newsletter is now up to 1500 to 1600 people. Every month they take on a new sponsor. Now the sponsor block space in the newsletter is $600 per month.

Chris says if you have an audience, even if it seems small, there’s a way to monetize that. They have advertising on several outputs, and they have member companies. They are also working on courses for under-served portions of their audience, like firefighters and researchers. They can also make money from consulting and speaking. Ways to monetize start becoming available once you are the biggest source of information on your topic.

18:41 Why do you think that launching a business out of your PhD research is something that should be considered?

Chris acknowledges that it can be scary to put yourself out there. But people should consider blogging because it builds your reputation in your space. It leads to job offers. Chris says he had a lot of contacts just after six months of blogging and bringing on guest posts from experts in his field. He says you build your business by putting out content and being seen as an expert, then people contact you with opportunities. Another option is advertising when others want access to your audience. Chris says he wants people to install the correct safety equipment, so he is happy to work with advertisers.

If you have an entrepreneurial spirit, Chris says this slow process of putting out content and being seen as an expert is way easier than the startup route. Startups seek funding first to get started more quickly. He emphasizes that his business transition was simply asking for sponsors on the newsletter and slowly being recognized as an expert.

22:29 Are there any other business models accessible to PhDs?

Chris says the first model is consulting. Being an academic consultant is usually very lucrative. He also lists speaking, freelance editing and writing, and building courses as other business models. Emily mentions that professors often work as consultants on the side.

25:33 What is Gradblogger?

Chris says Gradblogger is a platform to tell his story of starting an independent research company. Gradblogger is a website, podcast, and online resources. He says the tagline is helping PhDs build their businesses so they can change the world through research and experiences. He wants to have a role in creating superstar academics who make a big difference in their fields but are not tied to a university.

Chris says that through Dust Safety Science, he has independence and security. They will fund a Masters student. He calls himself “self tenured” because he can make his own decisions through his independent research company. Chris presents this as an example of what other PhDs could do if they start blogging to create their own business.

28:48 Do you have any advice for a PhD interested in being seen as an expert by a wider community or in starting their own business?

Chris says getting started now is important. He says getting exposed to different ideas by joining relevant communities is helpful. He recommends taking an accounting class.

Chris recommends creating a virtual mentorship group, or Master Mind group. This idea comes from the book Think and Grow Rich* by Napoleon Hill. For his virtual mentorship group, Chris says he picks people who have already done what he wants to do and he learns everything he can about them. When he’s making a decision, he thinks about what his virtual mentor might tell him to do in the next step.

[* This is an affiliate link. Thank you for supporting PF for PhDs!]

Emily summarizes this as exposure. Being exposed to more ideas and different ways that people do things helps you break out of your silo.

34:06 Conclusion

This Grad Student Defrayed His Housing Costs By Renting Rooms to His Peers

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On today’s episode, Emily interviews Dr. Matt Hotze, an administrative director at Rice University and co-host of the Helium podcast. When Matt moved to Durham, NC for his PhD, he immediately purchased a 3-bedroom house and rented the two extra rooms to his labmates. The rent Matt collected from his two housemates covered nearly all of his mortgage payments during his years in grad school, though he had some financial bumps in the road as well relating to house repairs and his dual relationship with his housemates. Ultimately, his decision to sell the property also hinged on his personal relationship with his tenants. Matt shares the overall effect this investment had on his finances and his three key pieces of advice for another early-career PhD considering this route.

Links Mentioned in the Show

PhD landlord

Would You Please Tell Us More About Yourself?

Matt has a PhD in environmental engineering. His advisor moved from Rice University to Duke University near the start of his PhD. He purchased a home in Durham when he moved there in 2005. After he finished his PhD in 2008, he did a postdoc in France and then another postdoc at Carnegie Mellon. Subsequently, he had a career in publishing with the American Chemical Society, serving as the managing editor for four journals, where he learned the business side of science. Currently, he works at an engineering research center at Rice with 80% of his time, and the other 20% of his time is dedicated to the Helium Podcast.

How Were You Able to Purchase a Home During Grad School?

It is no mean feat to buy a home during grad school!

Further reading: Purchasing a Home as a Graduate Student with Fellowship Income

First, Matt was “blessed” to not have any debt from undergraduate degree.

Second, when he started grad school in Houston, lived with his parents for most of his first year and banked much of the stipend. Living with his parents in the suburbs was cheaper because the distance from home to campus impeded going out and spending on entertainment. His motivation to save money was due to his upbringing; since he was able to save, why not do so? He expected there to be some use for it eventually, though he didn’t have specific plans to buy a home when he started. Saving the money wasn’t a big sacrifice as living with his parents was comfortable.

Third, in 2005-2006 the houses in Durham were not that expensive. This was after the dot com bubble burst in early 2000s and the housing crisis hadn’t hit yet. Matt hadn’t necessarily planned to buy, but he saw that the nice, recently built apartments were rather expensive to rent.

Though Matt had enough money for a 20% down payment, he still needed his parents to co-sign his mortgage because his income alone wasn’t sufficient to support the mortgage payments. He bought a modest 3BR home and rented out the other two bedrooms for below market rate. The purchase price for the home was approximately $200,000.

Further listening: How to Qualify for a Mortgage as a Graduate Student or PhD, Even with Non-W-2 Fellowship Income

Matt bought the house even before he moved to Durham, so he never rented there. He felt he was on a time clock to own the home for long enough during his PhD to make the transaction costs worthwhile. He decided he would either buy right when he arrived in Durham or he wouldn’t do it at all.

Emily had a similar thought process a few years into grad school when it might have been possible to buy, but since she was already a couple years into grad school she decided against buying due to the time clock.

Matt’s first tenants in Durham were the other grad students in his lab also moving with his advisor, which also influenced his decision to purchase right away.

What Were the Pros of Renting Out Rooms to Peers?

1) Matt had almost zero housing expenses as the rents from the two bedrooms basically covered the mortgage each month.

2) Matt’s house became the gathering spot for his grad school friends, so instead of spending money going out they would drink beer and play board games at home. (Emily had a similarly inexpensive social experience in grad school.)

3) Didn’t have any issues with the great majority of his tenants.

What Were the Cons of Renting Out Rooms to Peers?

1) Once Matt moved on from his PhD, he didn’t know his tenants quite as well. One of his tenants asked to pay his rent late a couple times. It wasn’t possible to handle this completely professionally because of the social ties between him and his tenants. This did end up working out, but it was stressful to handle this, especially from afar. Matt was especially concerned about being fair to all his tenants but not establishing a precedent that it’s OK to pay the rent late. The rental agreement between Matt and his tenants was helpful in this case, not only the legal components but also to set expectations.

2) The home inspector didn’t catch some flashing around the chimney, so a water leak developed soon after the purchase. Matt used some additional cash he had on reserve (~$500) for this repair, so it was a good thing he hadn’t used all his cash on the purchase. Another time, the water heater exploded. Thankfully replacing it didn’t cause an issue because Matt already had cash built up for these kinds of repairs. Emily references the 1% rule: You can expect to pay 1% of the home’s value in maintenance/repairs each year – but that’s only an average! It can be much higher or lower in any given year.

Why Didn’t You Sell When You Left Durham?

When Matt left Durham for his postdoc in France, it was not a difficult decision to keep the property. He still had tenants in place who would take a couple more years to finish their PhDs, and with three rooms rented out the property was now earning money above expenses. One of Matt’s friend-tenants served as the property manager so he didn’t have to hire a professional company.

At the end of grad school, Matt had a good amount of savings built up, and after the postdoc he had even more saved. This really set him up to be financially successful in subsequent stages of life. He lived in Pittsburgh for his second postdoc. When Matt married his wife and combined their finances, he was able to significantly contribute to their nest egg. It was great to not have to worry about (non-mortgage) debt.

All of this financial success came from the germ of financial parental help during college and that first year of grad school. Good financial fortune and bad financial fortune early in life do not guarantee any particular financial outcome, but certainly put momentum behind your finances one way or another.

How Did You Decide When to Sell the House?

When his friends finished their PhDs at Duke, Matt no longer felt able to hold on to the property. He didn’t have the bandwidth at the time while working in an intense postdoc position and applying for faculty positions to figure out how to hire a property management company from afar. Deciding to sell was really a trust issue. If he didn’t trust his tenants through personal relationships, he didn’t want to be a landlord any longer. It’s not always about numbers, sometimes it’s more about your feelings!

Matt ended up selling in 2009, which was pretty bad timing with respect to the national economy. He sold the house for just about the same price that he bought it for. Even without the property appreciating, the financial benefits he experienced through those years made it a good financial decision. Even though he didn’t make any money on the house, he defrayed all his housing costs when he lived there and continued to make money afterwards.

What Advice Would You Give to a Grad Student or Postdoc Who Is Considering Buying a Home and Renting Out Rooms?

1) Use a calculator to figure out whether buying and renting out rooms in a home makes sense financially in terms of the costs you will incur and the rental prices.

2) Are you OK having uncomfortable conversations with your tenants? Someone will inevitably not pay rent or break something or something stupid in the house. This will happen whether you know the renters or not!

3) Are you comfortable making basic repairs on your own? It’s expensive to outsource it all the time! Are you able to talk with vendors and negotiate? This is a needed skill.

4) What’s your gut feeling on owning rather than renting? You’ll make a good decision!

What Is the Helium Podcast?

Christine and Matt co-host the Helium Pocast. They help early-career researchers – senior grad students to early faculty – navigate the transition from grad school into first faculty position, from landing the position to navigating the position to advancing within the position. They bring on interviewees to talk about career transitions. Check them out! New episodes come out every Tuesday.

This Postdoc Epitomizes Side Hustling to Get Out from Under $100,000 of Debt

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In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Shana Green, a postdoc at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Shana finished her PhD with $108,000 of debt, and she decided to side hustle to pay it off as fast as she could. After trying several academic and non-academic side hustles, she is currently chiefly working as a driver for GrubHub. She’s on track to be completely debt free in less than four years total. We discuss the strategies she’s used to optimize her side hustle, how she feels about side hustling as a driver, and her goals for her YouTube channel, The Wealth Vibe.

Links mentioned in episode

side hustling postdoc

0:00 Introduction

1:09 Please Introduce Yourself

Dr. Shana Green is a Gates Millennium Scholar. This program funded all of her undergraduate education, and provided some funds for graduate education. Shana went to Howard University for her bachelors of arts in Anthropology. She got a Masters of Public Health at Columbia University, where she had to take out student loans for rent, food and living expenses. She went to the University of South Florida for her PhD in Public Health, where most of her education was funded but she had to take out some loans for her fifth year. She graduated in 2017 and worked as a postdoc at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She recently got a new position as a contractor for the CDC.

4:54 What was the total of your debt when you finished your PhD?

Shana was aware of her debt before she finished her PhD. She had $108,000 in debt when she graduated with her PhD. She says about $56,000 is from student loans. She took out about $40,000 from student loans, but she has accrued over $10,000 in interest. She had car debt, IRS debt, medical bills, and credit cards. One of her credit cards had $14,000 of debt.

She didn’t have to go into repayment for her student loans during her postdoc because she qualified for graduate fellowship deferment. She wanted to tackle her other debt first. Now she has about $63,000 in debt remaining. She paid off the credit card, IRS debt, and medical bills. She is very close to paying off her car. She will only have her student loans remaining after two years of he repayment journey.

Shana says that when she moved to Atlanta, she started side hustling right away. She couldn’t afford to go out and meet people and get to know the city. She went straight to the grind and working hard to pay off her debt.

8:50 How does your postdoc salary affect your debt repayment journey?

Shana is grateful she has a higher stipend than many postdocs. She was making about $70,000 gross annual pay from her postdoc stipend at the CDC. This is in contrast to the National Institutes of Health minimum stipend that was just below $50,000 annual stipend. She was in an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) funded postdoc, which compensates based on education and work experience. She received about $5200, then she had to pay quarterly taxes. Her take home was somewhere around $4,000.

Shana says while this was a good stipend, it wasn’t enough to cover her debt payments. She calculated she needed to make another $1,500 to $2,000 more each month for her debt payments. Her goal was to be debt free by February 2021.

11:38 What are the different side hustles that you’ve tried since moving to Atlanta?

Shana says the first side hustle she tried was Instacart. In this job, she shopped for groceries and delivered them. She started that in October 2017. When Instacart changed their system so she made less money, she tried other jobs. She tried virtual assistance, Upwork, and local food delivery service. Since April 2018, she has worked for GrubHub and still does Instacart every now and then. She also does freelance research through Upwork. She says GrubHub is her “bread and butter” as a side hustle.

13:17 How does a GrubHub side hustle work?

Shana explains that when a customer places an order, she gets a ping on her phone. GrubHub provides the details up front to help her decide if she wants to accept it. She is free to reject orders. If she accepts, she goes to the restaurant to pick up the food and bring it to the customer. She contrasts this to Instacart, where she had to put together the order herself instead of just picking it up.

She makes about $20 per hour with GrubHub. The least amount she makes is $15 per hour, and the most is $25 per hour. She spends about four hours a night doing GrubHub. On the weekends nights she works 5 hours. She works at minimum three days during the week. There were several weeks that she worked every day of the week. After her work at the CDC for the day, she almost immediately started her GrubHub work.

17:34 How do you decide which GrubHub orders to take?

Shana keeps three things in mind: the payout, the distance, and whether the person tips. GrubHub pays a minimum of $3 base pay, a mileage contribution, and tips if the customer chooses. She says if the person has not tipped through the app, they won’t tip in person. She tries to take orders $8 or $10 or more. She also tries to do orders within a four mile radius. She maximizes the base pay and the tips, not the mileage. Shana mentions some restaurants are unreliable, which she learned through trial and error, and she factors that into her decision.

22:12 Has anything really bad or really good happened to you as you worked for Instacart and GrubHub?

Shana says she had unpleasant interactions with Instacart customers. She tells stories about customers that insult her and imply that she is “lesser” for working these side hustles. These customers have no idea that she has a PhD and works as an epidemiologist. Shana shares that she has felt down about having to work side hustles that are not using her expertise, but she gives herself pep talks and reminds herself this is temporary.

25:08 Why didn’t you limit your side hustles to PhD type of work?

Shana explains that she tried through Upwork to offer data analysis and research consultation services, but she didn’t get any clients. She realized that this wasn’t going to work, because she needs quick money. She wanted to be able to make money like an Uber or Lyft driver could.

She was a little ashamed of doing this at first, and she didn’t tell anyone except for her mother and her boyfriend. She felt like she had reached a level of success, like she was “Dr. Green” and she used to teach at a university. She worried that people would view her work at Instacart and GrubHub as a step back. Now she wants to inspire people to take on their debt and work hard for their financial goals. This is why she started her YouTube channel “The Wealth Vibe.”

Emily says that if anyone speaks negatively about this work, as if this work is “beneath them,” that speaks poorly of that person. She also says that Shana is on a great career trajectory, but the work for many PhDs is more limited and many have to be in adjunct position, which typically does not pay well. Emily says Shana is living like no one else like now because she is working hard, but in two years Shana will be debt free and living like no one else in the positive sense.

Shana shares that she also teaches an online course in Epidemiology. This pays $3,000 per semester. She says she makes way more money through GrubHub than she does as an adjunct. Shana says she found that PhD work does not pay well. Emily adds that there’s not enough volume, or demand, for side jobs for PhDs.

35:08 What is your YouTube Channel about?

Shana’s YouTube Channel is called The Wealth Vibe. She creates videos to help people increase their income, help them budget, so that people can build their wealth. She posts monthly videos about making her budget and paying off her debt. She also makes videos about her side hustles and how to maximize money you make. She has made videos about taxes, because her taxes are not withheld and she has to save for tax payments. She says she reaches a broad audience of people who are GrubHub drivers as well as who have PhDs.

39:40 Conclusion

How To Launch A Side Hustle in Grad School

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Side hustles are all the rage these days. Everyone seems to have one, and some even translate into big money! However, in my experience, few grad students are aware of (or understand how) to get one going. Even fewer faculty seem to be aware of how they could have one themselves OR how they can support their students in this endeavor. In this post, I’m going to talk to you about why you want to launch a side hustle, and why it’s worth your time to do it in grad school. If your a faculty member these tips can also apply to you!

Today’s article on how to launch a side hustle is by Dr. Leigh A. Hall. To read an article today by Emily, please visit Leigh’s website, Teaching Academia.

launch side hustle

What Is A Side Hustle?

A side hustle is a way to earn extra cash. Ideally, it’s going to be something you are super passionate about because you will be spending extra time creating it. Side hustles happen outside your current full time job (or graduate studies/assistantship). You decide how much time you want to devote to it and when you want to put in the hours. You can work with someone else, but most side hustles tend to start out as solo ventures. As they become more successful, you may find you need to pay others to help you. Some people have such successful side hustles that they eventually leave their full time job and devote themselves solely to their project.

Why Should You Launch A Side Hustle?

You might be thinking you have enough to do right now. You don’t need to have extra demands on your time. And there’s no guarantee that a side hustle will pay off anyways, right? But think about it this way – if your side hustle is inline with things you already enjoy doing then you’re not wasting any time by devoting yourself to it. If you were going to do it anyways, then you lose nothing by seeing if you can generate some extra income by sharing your work with others.

However, the side hustle is not just about you. While it can be a great way to generate extra income, ultimately you are providing a service that benefits others. If people are willing to pay you for your work – whatever it may be – that means they find value in it which means you are enhancing the lives of others in some way.

Finally, a side hustle can allow you to establish yourself beyond your academic career. It will allow you to connect with more people, and different people, than you likely would through academia alone. This can bring you a whole host of opportunities and open doors that otherwise would have stayed close. Your work as an academic will likely reach a narrow subset of people. Add a side hustle to that and you can expand your reach.

How To Identify The Right Side Hustle For You

Ok – you’re interested but unsure about where to start. The first thing is to figure out what you want your side hustle to be about. It can be connected to your day job, but it doesn’t have to. If you have a hobby that you are exceptionally good at then you could turn that hobby into your side hustle. It doesn’t have to extend from your job.

For example, several years ago I ran a successful yoga blog. I’m not a yoga teacher. I just wrote about going to yoga classes and what I learned in the process about myself. Eventually the blog ran its course, but I was able to get some great sponsorships and support along the way.

Because my blog added value to the yoga community, companies would send me yoga mats, clothes, shoes, all kinds of goodies for review. I even got to review a meal kit service so I had groceries mostly paid for now and then. My yoga practice was a serious hobby, and it was able to generate some income for me – even if just through free products – that I enjoyed and benefited from.

Currently, my side hustle extends from my job. I have a number of courses I sell. Do I generate massive amounts of income? No, but I do enjoy a nice supplement that I can do with as I please (I often just save it).

The key here is to pick a niche that you enjoy and that you want to share with others. And it’s perfectly fine to have both a hobby and a professional side hustle! You get to set the hours and how much you will be involved so do what’s best for you.

Launching Your Side Hustle

There are a number of ways to launch your side hustle, and any combination of them can work. After you identify your niche, you’ll need to consider how you want to connect with others. Some common ways to do this are:

  1. A website. You can get one for free (wordpress.com) and later move to a paid version. A free version lets you test the waters and play around without the stress of having to pay for it.
  2. A YouTube channel: I highly recommend this. Everything is going in the direction of video. A channel will allow you to build an audience. And while you are giving people content for free, once they see that you have something of value they will start to buy your more in-depth products.
  3. Patreon: Admittedly, I need to get this one going. Patreon allows you to sell memberships at varying tiers. For example, you might have people who give you 5.00 every month in exchange for specific things you create or offer. A second tier of people might give you 10.00 a month and receive something different/more. You get to decide how to price the tiers and what people get in return.
  4. Selling Courses: You may want to create one or more courses that people can access asynchronously. A number of platforms allow for this with varying advantages and disadvantages. Udemy allows you to post your courses free of charge, but they will take a hefty fee in return (they also help with marketing your courses). Platforms like Teachable and Thinkific require you to pay an ongoing fee or yearly subscription for your courses to be hosted, and they do no marketing. However, you stand to keep more of your money each time you sell a course here than on Udemy.

Launching your side hustle thus requires:

  • A clear vision of what you are going to be offering
  • Who would be interested in your product/creations?
  • Understanding where to house yourself and your work

A side hustle is going to require a mix of free and paid content. You are going to want to have a website or YouTube Channel (likely both) and a plan in place for content development. What do you want to sell? When will you find time to create this content and build out your offerings (both free and paid).

If you’re wondering if there is a right/wrong/best time to launch your side hustle my answer to you is this:

There is no best time to launch. You need to know what it is you want to do and what platforms you want to start out on. Then you go. You don’t need to do everything at once, and you can build out along the way as you get comfortable. The trick is to not get caught up on something not being good enough or that you only need to do X and then everything will be perfect. We’re not looking for perfect here. We’re looking for a few key things to be in place and then it’s time to go.

Having a side hustle can bring in extra income while allowing you to grow and develop professionally or with a hobby. The sooner you get started the sooner you will start to reap the rewards.

Dr. Leigh A. Hall is a professor at the University of Wyoming where she holds the Wyoming Excellence Chair in Literacy Education. She’s had a side hustle for four years now selling courses that can benefit graduate students and early career academics. See her work at TeachingAcademia.com.