College Grad Lessons

This post was written for Twenty-Something Writers, a new blog that promotes writing, sharing ideas and motivating each other to sit down and write. Be sure to check it out if you haven’t already.

As twenty-something writers, most of us are students or young professionals that wouldn’t mind making some extra money. Although writing might be something that you just do for fun, you can use your blogging and other writing to help land freelance or part-time jobs.

I’m attending grad school full-time starting this fall and have been looking for a part-time job. I currently work full-time as a web developer and training specialist and recently interviewed for a part-time/contract web design position with an interactive design firm. One of the samples I sent to the firm was a blog template that I built for WordPress, so the person interviewing me asked if I had experience writing. Although I hadn’t planned on talking about College Grad Lessons (something that I do for fun and still needs a lot of work), it was the perfect writing sample for web content. The positive response that I received regarding my blog made me realize that I should consider freelance/part-time copywriting as another type of part-time job to pursue during grad school.

As a twenty-something writer, here are ten freelance/part-time jobs to consider:

1. Copywriter - Search job postings and contact local PR and design firms to find potential copywriter positions. Send a link to your blog and few other writing samples and highlight your computer skills.
2. Blogger - Blogs are becoming increasingly popular for small business marketing, but business owners often lack the time to research and write blog posts related to their business. Watch local job postings and search for businesses with blogs that need more or better content to find potential blogging jobs.
3. Web Content Editor - Small businesses and design firms may be interested in hiring a web content editor to edit copy and add content to web sites. Look for job postings with WordPress listed as a desired skill.
4. Tutor - Local schools or private companies may be looking to hire English tutors. Also consider posting flyers or an ad in a school newspaper to find interested parents and students. In high school, I tutored as a part-time job and made a decent amount of money. In addition to helping students with homework, you could offer creative writing lessons. Read the rest of this entry »
   

In college it was easier to find time to go to the gym. I often went in the middle of the afternoon or late at night. The gym wasn’t crowded at these times and I typically had plenty of energy. Since graduating college and starting a full-time job, I’ve had trouble motivating myself to workout. In the summer and early fall I enjoyed running outside in the evening after work, but it’s still too cold to do that. Plus, if I workout when I get home I feel like that’s the only thing I have time to do.

I’m going to the beach in exactly one month and summer is right around the corner, so I’d really like to get back into a workout routine. Does anyone have suggestions for how to fit a workout into a busy schedule and make it enjoyable? I’d love to heard ideas! I’ll post my workout plan later this week after I get your feedback.

Over the past two years I’ve used Turbo Tax to file my taxes because I parents always buy it and I usually was home often enough to find a time to sit down and fill it out. Plus I typically just had one W-2 and only few thousand dollars of income. Since I had multiple jobs in 2008 and now work full-time, I decided it was worth researching what tax filing method would work best for me.

My needs were as follows:

• Input multiple income sources (W-2s)
• Document my savings account interest (minimal) even though I didn’t have the 1099
• Document my “scholar” money that I didn’t get a W-2 for, but wasn’t used for tuition (so had to be claimed)

Initially I looked into H&R Block’s TaxCut. Someone told me it was free (under a certain income level) and easy to use. I created an account but ran into issues because I had the data needed, but not some of the forms. H&R Block’s TaxCut asks for numbers in certain boxes of form if you answer “yes” to having that type of income in 2008. Since I didn’t know what box numbers were what on the form, I was afraid that I would fill it out wrong.

At that point, I decided to wait to file my taxes for awhile. I thought I might get the forms in the mail, but didn’t. I did a bit of research and decided that using Free File from the IRS web site would probably be easiest. I gathered up all of my documentation and a calculator and filled out the form online. It was nice and easy. Personally, I liked using the actual form much better than a user interface that asks you questions and fills out the form for you. It was easier for me to figure out where everything needed to go on the form and why it was being asked for since I could see the entire form at once. After using Free File for my federal tax return, I used a similar program for the State of Maryland. In a couple of hours, my federal and state tax returns were filed and I had received an e-mail confirmation saying they were being reviewed.

A couple of weeks later, I have my tax returns in my savings account and don’t have to worry about April 15.

How did you file your taxes or what method are you planing to use this year?

Today is the official launch of Twenty-Something Writers. The blog/community is a new place for twenty-something writers to talk about their ideas and get inspired. For the blog’s first post, Ashley asked readers to respond to the following prompt:

Tell us about your writing history. Have you always enjoyed writing? Did you hate grammar lessons in school? Who have been your greatest influences? What kind of writing do you enjoy most? Take any creative spin you want. Post your response on your blog and leave the link in the comments below. Check out the responses of others as well.

As a kid, I loved to read and write. Thinking back to my childhood I remember the constant ideas I had for poems, stories, plays and movies. Summers at my grandparents’ farm meant the annual cousin play, written and directed by me of course. I was the oldest cousin, so the role was somewhat logical, but I’m also pretty sure I was a bit obnoxious as a kid. Either way, I miss the creativity that I had as a kid. I didn’t hesitate to fill notebooks with the beginnings of novels. Unfortunately they were always left unfinished, but always because I had a new idea. Read the rest of this entry »

Social networking is a great tool for meeting people in the same profession or city. With Twitter, I have managed to create a small network of people that use the same content management system that the web team I work on recently implemented. I’ve also developed a network of people that have similar blogging interests. Between Twitter, Linked In, blog networks and the many other social networking methods, you find people that are incredible resources and people that can learn from your experiences.

But what happens when I need to look for a new job or hope to find additional freelance work? The fact that I can develop a blog template for WordPress and understand how to use social networking effectively are desirable skills, but I do I really want to share my blog and Twitter page with prospective employers?

Personally I see plenty of benefits of sharing my social networking identity. I don’t see anything that I post being a turn off for employers, but who knows? My blog shares my grad school decision process, how I got my current job and so much more. I often tweet about things I’m working on at work, post questions about web development and occasionally reference going out for drinks. I’m careful not to complain too much or share unnecessary personal information, but I realize that one tweet or blog post could make the wrong impression.

Have you thought about what your social networking presence says to employers? What rules do you follow when posting things online?

Today marks the three month anniversary of College Grad Lessons. This is still a very new blog, but I thought today’s post would be a good opportunity to share my development plan for this blog/project.

Over the next month, I hope to implement a new custom design, start highlighting other college grad bloggers and expand the resources beyond blog posts. In the future, I would like to offer discussion boards, an “Ask a College Grad” weekly Q & A feature and build resources for college students to use in preparing for life after college graduation.

I would love you get your response to the following questions:

1. What resources would you like to see as a college student/recent college grad?
2. Who are your favorite recent college grad bloggers?
3. What questions did you have about life after college when you were a college senior?

Please comment with your responses or any thoughts on how to improve College Grad Lessons. Thanks!

As a college student, Friday nights meant temporary freedom. I survived classes, student government meetings, working, etc. by looking forward to the end of the week. Whether is was a silly theme party or just watching a movie with close friends, there was one guarantee. I would be going to sleep sometime after 1 a.m. (if not after 3 a.m.). Of course, I also slept in and only woke up in time to catch the end of brunch in the dining hall.

As an “adult” with a job, my day-to-day routine is less stressful than it was in college, but I’m completely exhausted by Friday at 5 p.m. In fact, I usually go to sleep by midnight after going out to eat and hanging out with the housemates. The days of going out multiple nights in a row are certainly over for me. One or two nights are plenty.

Honestly, I’m a bit depressed about it. I’m only 21! It turns out that a college grad weekend just isn’t the same as a college student weekend.

How has your typical weekend changed since graduating from college? If you’re in college, what do you hope your typical weekend is like after college?

After getting accepted into grad school for information management last week, I’ve started thinking about how it will impact my career. I plan to send my response to the program saying that I will attend in the fall within the next week, but need to be absolutely sure that leaving my current job won’t be a mistake.

As someone with a B.A. in Economics and an interest in web development/information architecture, I feel that a Master’s in Information Management is an important step in putting some theory and formal education behind the skill set I have gained through independent projects and working as a Web Developer/CMS Training Specialist at the College. The Web Team I work for met me as an intern and I had the opportunity to prove that I was a fast learner and had natural talent for web development before applying for a “real job.” This made it easier to land my current job with them. My fear is that my career development will be too slow if I don’t get a degree to add some weight to when I take about my experience and interests. I hope that my time in grad school will also double as some time to take risks, work on my own projects and try out some other positions.

As much as grad school is important to me, I don’t want to be left without a job when I graduate or with a job that I didn’t need the degree to get. With enough planning in advance, I would expect that I’ll find something I’m happy with but is that just wishful thinking? In the short run, what about part-time work? I’m not sure that a graduate assistantship is the right move for me and I might not get one. I’d love to do some freelance to gain broader experience outside of higher ed, but maybe I need to have a more traditional job first? Ideally I’d like to find a place that I can telecommute most of the time and would allow me to keep working with Content Management Systems, but figure such jobs would be highly competitive.

I’d love to hear anyone’s insight or personal experience with grad school/jobs. Even better, does anyone have recommendations for a good job for me?