Like many other citizens navigating our modern economy, college students often have to work multiple jobs to pay their way. Beyond finding ways to cover basic living expenses and tuition, these young people are also expected to make time to gain relevant experience in their chosen field of study—often for free or below minimum wage.

While it can be difficult to juggle multiple part-time jobs, a class schedule and the associated homework, we talked to three students who, like many of their peers, find that navigating a full schedule is not only doable, but can prove energizing—especially when a person’s chosen side hustle taps into an emerging interest or passion. 

Lauren Smith

College students often forget what it’s like to be 12 years old, but not Lauren Smith, 21. She spends over an hour each week coaching a youth soccer team of fifth- and sixth-grade girls. A fulltime engineering student at the University of Minnesota, she also works as a technical aide at 3M, and turned her hobby of knitting and cross-stitching into a side hustle. Smith was gifted a book titled “Feminist Cross-Stitch” for her 21st birthday and has wasted no time crafting colorful patterns with feminist sayings.

Smith’s busy schedule is mostly attributed to feeling responsible for cover ing all living costs that her parents don’t. Although her parents help her out with both tuition and rent, Smith works over twenty hours a week to avoid asking her mom for grocery money, or her dad to fill up her gas tank.

Yet, Smith says her coaching job is fueled by her passion to support and empower girls in a male-dominated soccer club. She wants to “help kids realize you can love soccer at every level possible,” something she has struggled with herself.

With a commitment to her team beyond basic coaching responsibilities, Smith’s love of soccer cannot be disputed. Last year, her team told her they disliked the coach running their futsal games, a version of soccer played with five-person teams on a basketball style court. So, Smith paid for a Lyft to take her to every game. “I wanted to go and make them have a good time, because that could be the moment that breaks them, that makes them not want to come to practice next week.”

Smith is busy, but she wouldn’t change her soccer-packed, engineering-filled, cross-stitched schedule if she could. Smith’s appetite for financial independence quashes her desire for free time.

Alejandro Lagman

A thrift store located in the basement of a Minneapolis tobacco shop was one of Alejandro Lagman’s first gigs as a mixed media artist.

Lagman, 21, is a junior studying sustainable systems management at the U of M. He describes himself as a talkative and social person, which is obvious by the eloquence of his conversations.

Lagman is not technically employed, but relies on side gigs for gusto, and to fill his time and wallet. He primarily works as a freelance photographer, but says that in “today’s media landscape, you need to be able to do everything.” Subsequently, he’s added to his skill set, and changed his title to “mixed media artist.”

In hopes of working beyond his side gig, Lagman is currently looking for another job, one unrelated to his major. He hopes to find work at an art museum where he can be surrounded by creativity.

 “I have plenty of time to work in the future,” he says.

Kayla Song

Kayla Song, 22, works until 2 a.m. on the nights she DJ’s for the U of M’s student-run radio station, Radio K. She wakes up for class five hours later.

Song is a senior studying journalism, political science and design at the university. She has three jobs and a “side hustle,” which is her unpaid position as a student DJ. Song also blogs for Minnesota Public Radio’s The Current, serves as a barista at Sencha Tea Bar and attends the front desk of Radio K.

When describing how she stays organized between her career as a student and working three jobs and a side gig, Song says she relies on bullet journaling, “which kind of makes planning fun.”

As for her main hustle? That’s her position at The Current, where she writes about local music news, concert reviews and “all things music,” including the recent live show of folk-rock duo, “Indigo Girls.”

Song, who works around 30 hours a week on top of her college courses, pays for her own rent, groceries and other expenses. But her business is not solely motivated by her paychecks. Her passion for music and audio production is an imperative driver of her laborious week.

“I like being busy,” says Song. “It’s partly why I wanted to do journalism, too.” She says she loves meeting new people and not knowing what you’re going to do the next day – both attributes of a journalism career.

As for Song’s plans after graduation, “I’ll probably have a main job, like a full-time job,” she says, adding, unsurprisingly, that she would also love to do a “side thing,” where she can flex her creativity.