Decent Part Time Jobs while in school?
 

Right now I am a pharmacy technician making 8.35 an hour, which wouldn't be bad if I was getting decent hours. I have also worked there for 4 years. Anyone have any good ideas on jobs that may work better for a college student? I live in TPA, Fl

Erika

Computer lab assistant.


You would be surprised how much time you will have on your hands.

:cool:

I worked in the school library (really boring but got lots of homework done) and was a preschool teacher. Both ended up being good, but I had to work a lot of hours for the teaching job. By senior year I was doing around 30 hours a week (plus full class schedule). If you can do it it's worth it, big time.

What about working in a call centre?

I know in Canada, employees of call centres make decent money. Even part time workers.
My godmother sets up and trains people in call centres and she said many are making $14-15/hour.
Pay usually starts around $10/hour.

I worked at RadioShack all through college and HS (had a 1 year stint at the Sharper Image, but went back to RS).

Worked with my schedule very well. I made between $10-$25/hr depending on my commission.

How about grading problem sets? I did that one semester. For a few classes in my department, the dept. would hire undergrads to grade problem sets and take some of the stress off the TA's. You had to have taken the class the previous semester and earned an A. It was only good for about 8hrs/wk and the pay wasn't great, but you could do the work whenever you wanted as long as you got the problem sets back to the TA's in time for them to record the grades and return them to the students. It was also a good way to keep the subject material fresh in your mind.

Another popular on-campus job was working at your dorm's front desk. Usually this meant sorting the mail, handing out keys to the weight room / music room / study rooms / etc., handing out keys to people who'd locked themselves out of their rooms, buzzing in visitors... nothing too crazy. It works well because they acknowledge that classes take precedence over work, plus if it's not too busy, you can work on a problem set or paper during your shift.

(I know of a guy who did something very clever: There must be a deskworker on duty whenever the dorm is open, for security reasons, and the dorms stay open during holidays. This guy had to write his senior thesis. So he arranged to stay over winter break and offered to work desk throughout. Since hardly anyone was on campus, he had almost nothing to do in terms of deskworker duties. So he took his laptop with him to the front desk, sat around and wrote his thesis, and got paid for it (time and a half for Christmas and New Year's to boot!).)

Has anyone ever worked for UPS or one of the airlines?

I'm a server at Red Robin: make about $17/hr on the weekends and at least $12/hr on other days. It'll take you nowhere, but it'll sure make money in the meantime.

I agree...even with the lousy $3/hour I was getting paid (yes, I know that's illegal, but my ex-boss didn't do much that WAS legal) I made at least $13/hr weekends and $8/hr weekdays, and that was at a little family diner.

The only problem is, it's very hard to budget a waitress salary, because sometimes you just aren't busy and don't make anything, and other days you don't stop all day (and there have been days I've averaged $16/hr, and one night I made $5 the whole night).

I guess jobs pay more out here in CA because it's more expensive to live. I've had a few part time jobs, and the best one was working at the Undergrad admissions office. I got paid $10/ hr and didn't have to work a specific shift (I got to make my own hours- it was lovely!). Also, I now code for a psych study run through the hosptial. It's interesting, and pays $12/hr.

other things to try:
Teaching for Kaplan or the Princeton Review (if you got a good score on yor SAT or graduate entry exams, you can make $17-$25/ hr).

Tutoring

Front desk hotel shifts in the evening. Hardly anyone checks in at 11pm on a Tuesday, so you can do homework.

On-Campus: Bookstore, Library, Tour guide.

Temp work through a temp agency

Working for a department on campus.

Working for research studies. Sometimes they will pay you to be a research assistant!

Being an RA, or other dorm staff (frequently you get free housing!).

I've worked as a campus security guide which was great around a 21 credit hour schedule and also as an Administrative Assistant to one of our VPs at Butler. I'd pick the office work because you don't work nights or weekends and you can do your homework at the same time! It also pays fairly well since you're considered in a higher up position.

I live in Tampa as well and there are a lot of good part time jobs in the area. Check with Bank of America, Chase, Capital One, Fairfield Resorts, Progressive, Home Depot and Raymond James - they are all really good companies, have offices in the Tampa area (Raymond James is in St. Pete and both Progressive and Home Depot's offices are in Riverview). Most have call centers and are always hiring. Those are just a few of the big companies in town - there are a lot more, you just need to look. :D

I've heard that UPS pays really well, but the hours are crappy.

This is true. My mother-in-law worked for UPS and our last year in college she let my husband know about a job opening at the local UPS hub so he could try and recruit one of his friends so she could get her referral bonus. It paid very well, but you worked from 11 pm to 7 am. Blah!

I don't know if you have a campus job listing for the Tampa area or some way of finding people, but nannying is a great job. If you can handle being around little kids then it is awesome. I get paid about $10 an hour and it is really flexible around other commitments. I might keep it up in the fall around my class schedule. My friend found our nanny job b/c the family advertised in some listing at Wesleyan and my friend did ti for 2 years, but she went home this summer so I took over. See if you have some sort of job listing on your campus.