Ask HN: Making money as a graduate student

[andrewt]

I am sure that many of you have been in this situation before. The short story is this: I am an international graduate student at an American University (a very good one). I have enough financial support to live (ie. the standard graduate student stipend), and have a small fellowship from my home country. However, I am finding myself annoyed by how little it adds up to after taking into account things like rent, the mandatory tuition fee deduction, health insurance, etc. Note that I am definitely not a big spender, and I am very careful with my money.

Due to my status as a foreigner, My options are very limited for pursuing additional funds. I am unable to apply for any US fellowship because they all require at least permanent residency. I am quite dismayed by this, since it seems like there are so many funding opportunities for US residents that they don't even know which ones to pursue. Furthermore, my visa status prohibits me from being employed other than my research assistantship position.

I believe that the underlying issue is that I don't believe that I am being adequately compensated for my skills. I am not being ungrateful - I am very happy to have the opportunity to study here, yet the situation is quite constraining. Perhaps this is the result of the academic philosophy of paying one's dues, and then reaping the rewards afterwords.

Have any of you found (legal) ways around this? For example, working in exchange for equity, finding other funding sources... I am curious to learn about interesting and creative ''hacks''.

[grok2]

Sure. If you can program, choose to work as a freelancer from your country of origin (money sent to bank account in country of origin). Then move funds back to the US (personal money transfer). However, the difficulty of moving funds from your origin country to the US and the tax situation in your home country will impact things. You'll still make way less money though that if you were directly employed in the US (but possibly better than minimum wage). You don't want any scheme that breaks the US laws governing your study visa since you don't want to jeopardize your investment in your education in the US.

[grok2]

And don't worry about being "adequately compensated for my skills"...that's the wrong angle to go from at this point...you'll only feel frustrated whatever you do.