How I Monetized My Tech Skills as a CS Student (Made $1800 Last Month)
make-money-onlineStart Earning Today
How I Monetized My Tech Skills as a CS Student (Made $1800 Last Month)
I’m a computer science major. Last semester I was sitting in my Data Structures class thinking “When am I ever gonna use this?”
Turns out, sooner than I thought.
I was broke. Like really broke. My part-time job at the campus bookstore paid $12/hour for 15 hours a week. That’s $180 a week before taxes. Rent was $650. You do the math.
I kept hearing people say “learn to code, you’ll make so much money.” Cool, but I was already learning to code. I was taking CS classes. I knew Python, Java, some JavaScript. Where was all this money?
That’s when I realized something. I didn’t need to be a senior engineer at Google to make money with tech skills. I just needed to be slightly better than people who needed help.
The First Thing I Tried (That Failed)
I tried applying to internships. Got rejected from 23 companies. Twenty-three.
“Not enough experience.” “Looking for juniors or seniors.” “Position filled.”
Cool. So I need experience to get experience. Makes total sense.
I also tried freelancing platforms like Upwork. Posted my profile. “CS student, knows Python and Java, will work for cheap!”
Got zero responses. Turns out there are thousands of developers in India and Pakistan who will work for $5/hour. I couldn’t compete.
What Actually Worked
I was complaining to my roommate about this. He was working on his econ thesis and struggling with data analysis in Excel.
“Can you help me with this?” he asked. “I need to analyze like 500 rows of data and I don’t know how.”
I wrote him a Python script in 20 minutes. It cleaned his data, ran the analysis, and exported everything to a CSV. He was amazed.
“Dude, I would’ve paid you $50 for that,” he said.
That got me thinking. I just used skills from my Intro to Python class to solve a real problem. And someone would’ve paid me for it.
So I posted in a few college Facebook groups: “CS student here. If you need help with data analysis, web scraping, or automation, I can help. $30/hour.”
Got my first client in 2 days. A grad student who needed to scrape data from a website for their research. Took me 3 hours. Made $90.
Did that 4 more times that month. Made $450 total.
The Website Thing
Second thing that worked was way simpler than I expected.
I was at a local coffee shop. Checked their website while waiting for my order. It was slow as hell. Took like 8 seconds to load.
I ran it through Google PageSpeed Insights. Score of 23. Terrible.
I walked up to the owner: “Hey, your website is really slow. It’s probably costing you customers. I can fix it for $200.”
He looked skeptical. I showed him the PageSpeed score on my phone. His face changed.
“Yeah okay, how long will it take?”
“A few hours.”
I optimized the images, minified the CSS and JavaScript, enabled caching. Stuff I learned in my Web Development class. Took me 4 hours. Got the score up to 87.
He was thrilled. Paid me $200 cash.
I did that 3 more times over the next month. Made $600 total.
Here’s what I learned: small businesses have websites but they don’t optimize them. They’re slow, broken, or outdated. And they have no idea how to fix it.
They’re not hiring a $5000 agency. But $200 for a college student to fix it? Easy decision.
The Automation Scripts
Third thing that worked was selling automation scripts.
I was in a Discord server for students. Someone posted: “I hate manually downloading all these PDFs from our class portal. Takes forever.”
I wrote a Python script that automated it. Posted it in the server for free.
Got 3 DMs asking if I could customize it for their specific needs. Charged $40 each. Made $120 in one day.
That’s when I realized: people will pay for automation. Even simple stuff.
I started offering “automation as a service.” If you have a repetitive task, I’ll write a script to automate it.
Made scripts for:
- Automatically organizing files
- Scraping data from websites
- Sending bulk emails
- Generating reports from spreadsheets
- Backing up files to cloud storage
Charged $50-150 per script depending on complexity. Made about $400/month doing this.
The Tech Tutoring
Fourth thing was tutoring other CS students.
I wasn’t tutoring Intro to CS. I was tutoring specific topics I was good at. Data structures, algorithms, debugging.
Posted in the CS department Discord: “Struggling with linked lists? I can help. $25/hour.”
Got 3 students that week. Helped them understand concepts, debug their code, prepare for exams.
Made about $300/month doing this. Not huge money, but it was easy and actually helped me understand the material better.
What I’m Doing Now
Right now I’m making money from tech skills in 4 ways:
Primary (15 hrs/week): Website optimization and fixes. Making about $800/month.
Secondary (10 hrs/week): Automation scripts for students and small businesses. Making about $400/month.
Side (5 hrs/week): Data analysis and web scraping projects. Making about $300/month.
Occasional: Tech tutoring. Making about $300/month.
Total: $1800/month. That’s way more than my bookstore job, and I work fewer hours.
The Skills That Actually Make Money
You don’t need to know everything. You just need to know a few things well.
Here’s what actually makes money:
Python: Data analysis, web scraping, automation. This is my bread and butter.
Web stuff: HTML, CSS, JavaScript. Even basic knowledge is enough to fix most small business websites.
Databases: SQL. Lots of small businesses need help organizing their data.
Git/GitHub: Surprisingly, lots of students will pay you to help them understand version control.
Excel/Google Sheets: Not really “tech” but if you can write formulas and scripts, people will pay you.
You don’t need to know React, Docker, Kubernetes, or any of that advanced stuff. Basic skills are enough.
What Doesn’t Work
Some things I tried that didn’t make money:
Building apps: I spent 2 months building a “study buddy” app. Got 12 downloads. Made $0.
Open source contributions: Great for learning, terrible for making money.
Competitive programming: Fun, but doesn’t directly translate to income.
Learning frameworks: I spent weeks learning React. Haven’t made a dollar from it yet.
The stuff that makes money is boring. It’s fixing broken websites. It’s writing scripts to automate tasks. It’s helping people with Excel.
Not sexy, but it pays.
How to Actually Start
Don’t wait until you’re “good enough.” You’re already good enough.
If you know Python basics, you can write automation scripts.
If you know HTML/CSS, you can fix websites.
If you know SQL, you can help with databases.
Start by helping people for free. Post in Discord servers, Facebook groups, Reddit. “I’m learning [skill], happy to help with small projects for free.”
You’ll get experience. You’ll get testimonials. Then you can start charging.
I spent 3 weeks “preparing” before I started. That was stupid. You learn by doing, not by preparing.
Honestly, I spent so much time trying to figure out which tech skills were worth monetizing. Eventually I built a simple tool to help students figure out how to monetize tech skills based on what they already know. It’s not perfect but it beats endless research.
The Real Numbers
Month 1: $450 (just small projects)
Month 2: $750 (added website fixes)
Month 3: $1,100 (more clients, word of mouth)
Month 4: $1,400 (automation scripts taking off)
Month 5-6: $1,600-1,900 (current range)
I’m not rich. But I’m not stressed about rent. I can buy the textbooks I need. I can go out with friends without calculating if I can afford it.
Common Mistakes
Mistake 1: Waiting to be “expert level.” You don’t need to be an expert. You just need to know more than the person who needs help.
Mistake 2: Undercharging. I started at $20/hour. Now I charge $40-60/hour for the same work. People will pay if you solve their problem.
Mistake 3: Only looking for “big” projects. Small projects add up. $50 here, $100 there. It adds up fast.
Mistake 4: Trying to compete on price. Don’t try to be the cheapest. Be the most convenient, the most reliable, the easiest to work with.
What About Imposter Syndrome?
Yeah, I had it bad. “Who am I to charge money? I’m just a student. I don’t know that much.”
Here’s what helped: I’m not competing with senior engineers. I’m competing with people who know nothing.
A small business owner doesn’t know how to optimize their website. I do. That’s enough.
A grad student doesn’t know how to scrape data. I do. That’s enough.
You don’t need to be the best. You just need to be better than the alternative (which is usually nothing).
Tools You Actually Need
Free:
- Python (obviously)
- VS Code
- Git/GitHub
- Chrome DevTools
- Google (seriously, 80% of coding is Googling)
Paid (optional):
- ChatGPT Plus ($20/month) - helps with debugging
- Hosting ($5-10/month) - if you’re building websites
That’s it. You don’t need expensive courses or certifications.
Should You Try This?
If you’re a CS student (or any STEM major really) and you’re broke, yeah try it.
If you’re doing fine financially, maybe just focus on your classes and internship applications.
For me it was worth it. Not just for the money, but because I learned way more doing real projects than I ever learned in class.
Plus, when I apply for internships now, I can say “I’ve built automation scripts for 20+ clients” instead of “I completed the assignments in my CS classes.”
Final Thoughts
You don’t need to wait until you graduate to make money with tech skills.
You don’t need to be a senior engineer.
You don’t need to know everything.
You just need to know a few things and find people who need help with those things.
The first month was slow. I made barely any money and questioned if it was worth it.
But month 2 was better. Month 3 was better than that. Now it’s actually working.
If you’re a CS student stressed about money, just try it. Pick one thing you’re decent at. Offer to help people with it. See what happens.
You might surprise yourself.
Ready to Find Your Perfect Side Hustle?
Use our free AI-powered tools to discover income opportunities tailored to your skills and schedule.
Ready to Start Your Side Hustle?
Take our free 2-minute quiz and get personalized income recommendations.
Find Your Best Side Hustle →