Pros and Cons of being a Student and a Freelancer!
Most student have a job for beside their studies. One of four teenagers held a job in the non-summer months of 2020. This is from a general high school job statistic in 2020 from ZIPPIA. Maybe your are thinking about making some money beside your study or your job?
I want to give you some Advantages and Disadvantages according to my personal experience as being a student AND a freelancer.
In 2020 I founded my own company “IT Artface”. I am a web and app developer beside my dual study (online media). My study is a full time job where I switch between theoretical and practical semesters. That means I am often very busy regarding my dual study.
The reason why I work as a freelancer
Of course you can earn some extra money with being a freelancer but this shouldn’t be the main reason. I think that it is about making your passion as a second job. I always loved to make my own code projects for improving my skills and of course because I admire coding. Some of my commolitons talked about their freelancer job (some of them started in school). That sounded really interesting for me because it is a new journey with new challenges. So I came up with the idea making code projects for other people. Now I was able to invest time in making code projects and earn some money beside.
What are the advantages?
Make you passion as a profession
In my personal point of view this one of the biggest advantages of being a freelancer or enterpreneur in general. You can spend time with the things you love and making money simultanously. So you don’t have to make a second job that you don’t like. You can choose what are your working on.
Collecting work experience
Especially when you are a student you can have pracitcal work experience. When you finished your study and have to apply for a job, this makes a good impression in you CV. Besides that you can collect some references for the company you applied for. Another thing is you can test out (works not for every profession) if you like that job you will make after your study.
High flexibility
If you have a second job e.g. in a restaurant, then you will mostly have to work at specific times. That could be very stressful when you already have a busy day. But as a freelancer I can work when, where and how long I want. When I write many exams or have a busy day, I can plan and do my work on days when I have more time. So I can choose between long and short-term projects. Besides that I can always work from home or anywhere I want. The only thing I need is my laptop.
Testing out being a full time freelancer / enterpreneur
This is a big advantage in comparison for being a full time freelancer or enterpreneur. When you make this as a kind of part time job, you don’t have to rely on that work. This means if you do not like it or it doesn’t work for you, you can quit job as a freelancer or enterpreneur (in most cases if you don’t have contracts that commits you for something).
What are the disadvantages?
High responsibility and organisation
When I founded my own company, I have been liable for everything I do. It starts with hosting my own website and continues with deliever products that meet my client’s expectations. If you have angry customers, you will loose them. So being (part-time) self-deployed comes with high responsibility and organisation. That can be very stressful sometimes if you don’t can handle it.
It needs a lot of time
Especially in the beginning of my journey I realised that I have to build up everything on my own, e.g. my website, getting my customers and many other things. This time period can be very time intensive. I worked many weeks before I actually could started working.
High frustration tolerance
Every company needs clients or customers. At the beginning I had find new customers. The question was: how can I do that? There are plenty ways like special freelancer plattforms and so on. But I had to write many requests to potentional customers. Unfortunately you have to expect many cancellations or sometimes the person doesn’t respond you. You have to keep on!
Self motivation and hard work
Every beginning is hard. But making yourself independent means a lot of work. I can only speak for these people who live in Germany. In Germany I had to do lots of paperwork. You have to fill out “funny” things like “Gewerbeanmeldung” (in english: the allowance to found your own company). These processes are really rough and boring but you have to motivate yourself to keep moving forward. You have to motivated for achieving your dreams and goals!
As you see being a freelancer and a student (or have a fulltime job) has many advantages but also some disadvantages. Personally I would always make this decision again. If you work hard enough and believe in yourself, you can achieve your goals.
Thank you for reading one of my first stories :). If you want some advices for being a freelancer as a developer, leave me a message :).
