College Students Drink, Eat Ramen Noodles… and Freelance?

Brian Zafron |
Finding Work | Getting Started
| March 26th 2008

A friend dropped me an email about a new site he was launching, StudentFreelance.com, and it got me thinking about my own freelancing experiences in college…

For my money, students comprise one of the most overlooked and underutilized freelance communities. Even though tons and tons of students are learning extremely valuable (and marketable skills) on a daily basis, we seldom think about college students as potential freelancers, particularly when it’s time to fill the next freelance gig.

Back in my own college days, when I wasn’t hitting the books or drinking eggplant juice (my older brother somehow convinced me it would help with hangovers – it turned out he was just messing with me), I was fortunate enough to freelance on a fairly consistent basis. While my java pressing compatriots earned their beer money concocting frappacinos at Starbuck’s, I was discovering amazing synergies between my studies and my work. Like the time I was able to use a class on VRML to impress a client who only wanted a “3D-looking” kiosk menu programmed in Director, with a real immerse/interactive 3-D world! (For those not fluent in “tech,” allow me to translate: I did something pretty awesome.) Not only was it rewarding for me to apply skills from the classroom to the real world, but I feel pretty confident that I was providing my clients with high-quality services.

Certainly, some old and grumpy types might stereotype college kids as too young to understand the responsibilities that come hand-in-hand with freelancing. (These are probably the same types that don’t appreciate re-runs of Seinfeld or a good “yo mamma” joke.) But for those of us with even a little bit of open-mindedness, college kids represent an incredibly useful, and underutilized, talent pool.

I may be going out on a limb, but I think most students understand that those work relationships they form while in school often lead to jobs (or at least referrals). With this understanding under their belts, you can bet student freelancers will likely go above and beyond their assigned tasks. But that’s only one of many benefits towards supporting student freelancing.

Benefits from the employer’s perspective

1. Cheap Labor. Students are notoriously strapped for cash. They might be attending an Ivy League school, on track for a six-figure salary, but until they receive their diplomas and leave behind the pearly gates, they’re just looking for enough money to buy the next keg.

2. Opportunity to Build Relationships. If you begin working with a talented freelancer when his/her career is still young, you’re in a position to form a long-term relationship that’s grounded in trust and loyalty. After all, if you give a fresh-faced freelancer his/her first big break, he/she is certain to be grateful and will remember your company years into the future — even if she/he has already become established in a given field. Wouldn’t it be great to have a freelancer whom you could consistently depend upon? Or better yet, wouldn’t it be great if you could hire that rockstar programmer straight out of college before any of your competitors got their mitts on him?!

3. A Known Quantity. When you work with a student freelancer, you know that he/she has at least minimal work ethic and ambition – otherwise, he/she wouldn’t be in school. Furthermore, you can gain a feeling for the freelancer’s general intelligence by the quality of his/her school, although this certainly isn’t always a reliable indicator: sometimes geniuses attend no-name community colleges, and dim-witted slackers, by some stroke of luck (or because they held an admission officer’s child for ransom), were accepted into the Harvards of the world.

4. Help out a youngster. You have a heart, don’t ya? We all remember what it was like, regardless of our field, waiting for our first big break. For a potential student freelancer, who studies all day and works the night shift at Starbuck’s, that break might be working on your next project.

Benefits from the student freelancer’s perspective

1. Apply what you learn in the classroom. You’ve heard the adage “you learn by doing,” right? Well, guess what? It’s true. When you have the ability to apply the information you learn in the classroom to actual, real-world projects, I guarantee that you will not only appreciate that information a little bit more, but you will retain it with far greater ease and frequency. It’s one thing to complete a class project on 3D design, it’s another to complete the same project for a client, with real-world deadlines, consequences, and rewards. Plus, when you deal with clients, you’re not only learning about the technical side of things, but about the business: how to conduct yourself in a pragmatic and professional manner.

2. Make money. Green. Loot. Cold hard cash. You know what I’m talking about. If you can live without the endless supply frappacinos, the money is typically far better as a freelancer than as a barista.

3. Form Valuable Relationships. I already hit this point, but to quickly summarize: the relationships you form with employers while in school, if handled with tact and follow-through, can often lead to future jobs and referrals. Your career is like a skyscraper: the sooner you start building it, the sooner you will rise. Despite spending my last few years in college focusing solely on entrepreneurial endeavors, I had lots of former clients asking me if I wanted a job when my graduation date approached.

I know what you’re thinking. What about the downsides of student freelancing? Is everything student freelance related all roses and peanut butter cups? Well, no. From the employer side, student freelancers are already involved in a “full-time job,” college. When the student needs to decide between studying for finals and completing your project, what will he/she decide? Regardless of the individual’s answer, you’d probably prefer that he/she wasn’t asking himself/herself that question in the first place. Additionally, I confess, dealing with a young adult often raises concerns of maturity and responsibility. However, at the end of the day, the fact is that most freelancers are overburdened with work, stretched thin for time, and there’s never a way to tell in advance whether your freelancer is sufficiently mature/responsible.

From the student’s side… well, there’s really not much to lose. The money is good. The opportunity to “learn by doing” is exceptional. And unless you’re sticking with Starbuck’s because you want to become a store manager one day, freelancing is the perfect way to take steps forward with your budding career.

With all this information in mind, I’d like to encourage you guys to check out StudentFreelance, a new web 2.0 freelancing site that’s designed to connect businesses with college students who are eager to work and make some money. There aren’t really any other similar sites out there, so I’m interested to see what happens with it. Plus at the moment, it’s completely free — no membership fees, no project fees, totally gratis.

If you are or know of a college student who’s interested in Writing, Designing or Programming, you should definitely encourage them to freelance- whether it’s through craigslist, the school bulletin board, or my friend’s new website. And if you’re looking to hire a freelancer, I definitely support hiring a “professional,” but at the same time, perhaps you should also consider the benefits of the student route.

Brian Zafron |
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My name is Brian Zafron, and I emerged from my mother’s womb 24 years go with a modem in one hand and a business manual in the other. I grew up in a small town in southern Massachusetts, where my parents shoved books and cultural activities down my throat, and my two old brothers, now Investment Bankers in Manhattan, beat the daylights out of me on a regular basis. The result was a tough, smart-ass child with a love for knowledge, a thirst for competition, and an inexplicable obsession with Beverly Hills 90210. I was educated at Northwestern University, where at the age of 22, I received my first round of Venture Capital funding for a software company I started as a sophomore in high school. That company has since faded, but the experience led to Axial Solutions, the creative viral marketing company I’m currently co-founding, which received its first round funding less than three months ago. Contrary to my mother’s insistence, my success cannot be attributed solely to my charm and boyish good looks (thanks anyway, Mom). Rather, I have busted my hump since childhood. When most kids were out partying in college, I was working on my company until about 2am, at which point I’d leave my apartment and find the lucky girl who happened to be lingering at the local bar. With only twenty minutes to closing time, that’s when my magic reached full force – or sometimes, beer was thrown into my face. As the adage states, I work hard, but I play hard. My blog is dedicated to sharing my secrets to success, the plethora of knowledge I’ve accrued over the previous fast but fruitful 24 years, related to social marketing, entrepreneurialism, and everything in between. Plus, I live in Los Angeles’ lap of luxury, endlessly intersecting with wealth, women, and celebrity, so the blog will also feature accounts of my adventures, or more aptly, misadventures. I invite you to sign up to my RSS feed and join the party. I might appear a bit conceited at times, but as consolation, I offer content with more entertainment value and literary coherence than you’ll likely ever discover in the growing surplus of blogs. By the way, I eat web 2.0 for breakfast. With maple syrup.

College Students Drink, Eat Ramen Noodles… and Freelance?

Benefits from the employer’s perspective

Benefits from the student freelancer’s perspective

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