Feasible side hustles going into MS1

[dulapeep]

Hey all! I've been lucky enough to be accepted to my first choice school and will be starting classes in August. I'm currently working in clinical research and will be transitioning out of my job over the summer before school, ending a week or two before classes start. As much as I've enjoyed the job and the experiences I gained that helped me get into school, the pay definitely wasn't enough for me to build up any substantial savings before school. I'm hoping to take the typical advice to make the most of my summer before school - travel, time off, etc - but the financial aspect of this all is really starting to hit me. I'm mostly worried about the period before student loans are disbursed, when I'll have to cover costs associated with moving, deposits for a new apartment, furnishing the apartment, undergrad student loan payments, etc.

I'm wracking my brain coming up with a side hustle that wouldn't be an insane amount of effort on top of my full-time job, maybe even one that I could continue into school provided that it didn't take up too much my time. For those of you who didn't have any help with these costs from parents/others and didn't have much in savings, how did you swing it? Do y'all have any ideas for ways to make some extra cash on the side that would be feasible to continue into school?

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[GoSpursGo]

Let me stop you now--if you need to do a job between now and when your loans come in then do what you need to do, but do NOT do a side hustle in med school. I cannot tell you the number of people who thought they were being smart by trying to defray the cost of their medical education but stumbled academically, or even wound up having to repeat a year. That sort of defeats the whole purpose of trying to save money if you wind up tacking on an extra year of tuition. I have literally never seen anyone who tried to hold a side-hustle in med school who thought it was worth it after the fact.

These are the only 4 years of med school that you will ever have in your entire life. It's your one chance to lay the groundwork for the kind of doctor you're going to grow up to be, and that means A) really learning your pathophysiology so that you're able to think mechanistically about what's happening with your patients, and B) devoting whatever spare time you have to deciding what specialty you want to spend the rest of your life doing, as well as leaving enough time to tend to your mental health.

If you are truly worried about your finances leading up to loan disbursement, then you need to seriously consider your pre-med school plans. It would be great to travel the world, but you've got to take care of the essentials first and that includes moving expenses. If you can fund that by driving an Uber or working retail or whatever between now and matriculation, go for it, but please do not try and continue whatever you're doing into med school.

 

[LunaOri]

Being a patient “sitter” in the hospital is a workable side gig, because you can listen to your recorded lectures while you keep eyes on the patient (if your hospital will allow it)

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

freelance stuff if you completely control your hours but it’s really only worth it if you can get 75+ per hour. For people with programming experience, this is a reasonable figure if one finds the right project.

Also if you can tie it to your hobbies it might be worth it. For example, I’ve heard of some people teaching a kickboxing class or something in their spare time.

 

[gyngyn]

Let me stop you now--if you need to do a job between now and when your loans come in then do what you need to do, but do NOT do a side hustle in med school.

Let me emphasize this with an illustration. We had two students working on the weekends (unbeknownst to us). They will both have to repeat the year due to poor academic performance. These were highly accomplished individuals with sky high stats who believed that they could do in med school the same things they did in college.

 

[lumya]

Don’t do anything that interferes with your studying. That said I know someone who dog walks on the side. Pretty low commitment hours and you get some stress relief, but I would say it’s more of a “couple dollars extra spending money” and less “side hustle”

 

[Lawpy]

You can try MCAT tutoring. It’s at least related to medicine and you can make good money since the demand will always be high

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

You can try MCAT tutoring. It’s at least related to medicine and you can make good money since the demand will always be high

This. Make sure it’s not for a company like Kaplan, PR, Varsity. They steal too much of the profits. I would just create a website and look up how to get a good Google result in the local area.

 

[Kardio]

freelance stuff if you completely control your hours but it’s really only worth it if you can get 75+ per hour. For people with programming experience, this is a reasonable figure if one finds the right project.

Programming may be one of the worst side hustles for medical students. Maybe more experienced coders feel differently, but the amount of mental energy the code-writing process burns up would cost far more than just the hours dedicated to literally writing it.

For >95% of us, the juice ain’t worth the squeeze.

 

[Redpancreas]

Hey all! I've been lucky enough to be accepted to my first choice school and will be starting classes in August. I'm currently working in clinical research and will be transitioning out of my job over the summer before school, ending a week or two before classes start. As much as I've enjoyed the job and the experiences I gained that helped me get into school, the pay definitely wasn't enough for me to build up any substantial savings before school. I'm hoping to take the typical advice to make the most of my summer before school - travel, time off, etc - but the financial aspect of this all is really starting to hit me. I'm mostly worried about the period before student loans are disbursed, when I'll have to cover costs associated with moving, deposits for a new apartment, furnishing the apartment, undergrad student loan payments, etc.

I'm wracking my brain coming up with a side hustle that wouldn't be an insane amount of effort on top of my full-time job, maybe even one that I could continue into school provided that it didn't take up too much my time. For those of you who didn't have any help with these costs from parents/others and didn't have much in savings, how did you swing it? Do y'all have any ideas for ways to make some extra cash on the side that would be feasible to continue into school?

Side hustles don’t come about by trying to think about one before M1. It comes about from already having an idea and implementing it during M1. I would just focus on being a medical student. Feel free to pursue anything that you think Is a good idea without a major time sink.

-MCAT tutor
-PS editor
Etc. You would have to charge a lot to have your stuff get taken seriously. You can also become an influencer.

 

[deleted966837]

Donate plasma (>$100 per session), drive uber/door dash (I find this extremely therapeutic after long study sessions, like a "touch the grass" type feeling), gamble on crypto/stocks, summer job. Between those things I made around $15k in 2021 as a med student.

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

Programming may be one of the worst side hustles for medical students. Maybe more experienced coders feel differently, but the amount of mental energy the code-writing process burns up would cost far more than just the hours dedicated to literally writing it.

For >95% of us, the juice ain’t worth the squeeze.

When I took CS classes in school I felt this way about coding but now I find it very relaxing/enjoyable. I guess maybe if one is trying to get it done in the least possible time it would be stressful though.

 

[CanIBeAnonymous]

MCAT tutoring can be bank, especially if you have advertisable scores.

I was able to make up to 165/hr tutoring for the MCAT. Did roughly 5hrs a week during first year.


I know a lot of folks who also do dog sitting. It barely takes up your time since you just have to be in the household with the dog + the occasional walks & feeding. So you can make money whilst you study / watch TV / etc.

 

[Goro]

Let me emphasize this with an illustration. We have two students working on the weekends (unbeknownst to us). They will both have to repeat the year due to poor academic performance. These were highly accomplished individuals with sky high stats who believed that they could do in med school the same things they did in college.

This also happened to an advisee of mine. Was a consult before med school, and thought he could continue it during med school. He couldn't; failed his year courses and had repeat a year.

OP, in all honesty, if you're a male, there's sperm donation. Otherwise, plasma donation. But that's it.

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

gamble on crypto/stocks

I would avoid “gambling” in any form, especially if one has an addictive personality.
Investing is fine but

-no cryptos
-no options
-no margin trading

 

[CanIBeAnonymous]

I would avoid “gambling” in any form, especially if one has an addictive personality.
Investing is fine but

-no cryptos
-no options
-no margin trading

First, second, third, and fourth this. Please do become financially literate, but do not gamble in the market like this is. When you have time pick up White Coat Investor and figure out what you should be doing money-wise when you get into residency.

I do options trading as part of my overarching strategy, but I also have /years/ of experience. It's still risky, and requires a decent amount of time to manage. The market was extra bonkers last few years which has made a lot of folks think it's easy.

 

[aldol16]

Tutoring can be a good way to boost your money while being somewhat compatible with time. It'll get harder as you get into med school but the goal is always to have multiple income streams. Of the money you do earn, I would put it into a Roth IRA and use that to invest in some index funds. Unless you need the money up front.

 

[Kardio]

When I took CS classes in school I felt this way about coding but now I find it very relaxing/enjoyable. I guess maybe if one is trying to get it done in the least possible time it would be stressful though.

Probably doable if the project is limited to areas you’re so familiar with that there’s little to no intense problem solving. But then again the odds of (1) intimate familiarity with project’s scope, (2) sufficient enough skill for you to charge enough to negate the opportunity cost and (3) risks of inadvertently spending too much time on the side hustle all combine to make it impractical or counterproductive for most people.

 

[dulapeep]

Thanks all for your advice + words of caution! I'm really focusing on things I can do in this time before school, but if I can find something that gives me a small amount of income without detracting from adjusting to school + focusing on my studies, I'd be happy to have something small on the side. I think the most feasible suggestions for me would be MCAT tutoring, dogsitting, etc. Unfortunately I don't possess the proper skills/equipment for some of these suggestions (looking at you, sperm donation and coding), but the rest of these have given me a lot to think about!

I've had a lot of success helping other premed students at my undergrad (where premed advising is sorely lacking) and other places with MCAT planning/advice, essay editing, custom study schedules, etc. Until now I've felt uncomfortable charging for any of these things, but my tune is changing pretty quickly. Additionally, I made some really great MCAT review sheets - any thoughts on uploading them and charging for the PDF download on Etsy?

 

[SpoiledMilk]

Bro don't charge for your MCAT notes. Tacky. Generate good will by providing it for free. Good karma...

 

[dulapeep]

Bro don't charge for your MCAT notes. Tacky. Generate good will by providing it for free. Good karma...

Noted, just an idea.

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

Bro don't charge for your MCAT notes. Tacky. Generate good will by providing it for free. Good karma...

Noted, just an idea.

Putting on website for free is a decent way to get customers. That’s why most test prep and admissions consultants firms have white papers and or free resource sections.

 

[TakotsuboOkazaki]

You will not meaningfully offset $100-300K by dog walking, driving for Uber, or anything else.

Pick a high paying specialty. Avoid delaying attending-hood via research years in school or residency (yes i’m looking at you every academic/semi-academic gen surg program).

You really won’t have an effective amount of capital to make money with until you’re an attending.

 

[CanIBeAnonymous]

You will not meaningfully offset $100-300K by dog walking, driving for Uber, or anything else.

Pick a high paying specialty. Avoid delaying attending-hood via research years in school or residency (yes i’m looking at you every academic/semi-academic gen surg program).

You really won’t have an effective amount of capital to make money with until you’re an attending.

Yeah, in my scenario I only worked because I came in with a high debt burden and loans that could not be deferred, so I had to make monthly payments.

Otherwise, like you said, the work you could do part time for about 2 years will be offset by like a week of attending salary and isn't worth the time unless you absolutely needed the money now and couldn't get it otherwise.

 

[hellanutella]

Echo much of what has already been said. The amount of money I made on side hustles was a pittance compared to med school sticker price, but I really wanted some additional play money for travel.

I had a side hustle after MS1 once I got the hang of studying; for me I started doing dogsitting and medical illustration, which were good freelance gigs as I could put them on hold if I had tough blocks. I think that was the key to making any sort of side gig work. For MS3 onwards I started doing personal statement and app reviewing, some of which was pro bono, but looking back on it I now have some ethical quibbles with it... a majority of my clients were extremely well-to-do and I felt like I was just helping out people who were already very much advantaged. :/

During summer between MS1 and 2 my roommates and I also all crammed into my bedroom and rented out the other rooms in our house to subIs + summer research fellows to make extra $$$. Ended up backpacking through Scandinavia for a month on the profits, which was worth the weeks I spent on an air mattress. My roommates and I were really good friends and we still had a good time living out of a box! So a passive income option if your landlord will permit it...

 

[Lawpy]

Have you heard of OnlyFans?

I’m stunned you went in that direction

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

This is an aside but does anybody else cringe at the term “side hustle”?(note: not directed at the OP but more so that I hear this more and more frequently from friends and such)

 

[DarkBluMage]

This is an aside but does anybody else cringe at the term “side hustle”?(note: not directed at the OP but more so that I hear this more and more frequently from friends and such)

No, it’s a common term in the black community. Doesn’t bother me at all lol

 

[mrbreakfast]

I was able to make up to 165/hr tutoring for the MCAT

If anyone is able to land a gig like this as an MCAT tutor, drop out of med school, as this is more per hour than most physicians make.

I will say that, while tutoring for a big company like Kaplan feels like you're getting robbed (your salary is about 2% of what Kaplan makes for the course you teach) former tutors who do well in medical school can be offered rather lucrative part-time, internal, remote positions not publicly available.

Side gigs I have seen people do include bartending and driving for Lyft. No one kept it up unless they had to. In a similar case to those mentioned above, I know someone who drove a pedal tavern on weekends and then suffered a drop in academic performance.

The loans look scary, but you'll make a decent living as a resident and be able to rapidly pay them off as an attending. What's more important is living within your means.

 

[CanIBeAnonymous]

If anyone is able to land a gig like this as an MCAT tutor, drop out of med school, as this is more per hour than most physicians make.

I will say that, while tutoring for a big company like Kaplan feels like you're getting robbed (your salary is about 2% of what Kaplan makes for the course you teach) former tutors who do well in medical school can be offered rather lucrative part-time, internal, remote positions not publicly available.

Side gigs I have seen people do include bartending and driving for Lyft. No one kept it up unless they had to. In a similar case to those mentioned above, I know someone who drove a pedal tavern on weekends and then suffered a drop in academic performance.

The loans look scary, but you'll make a decent living as a resident and be able to rapidly pay them off as an attending. What's more important is living within your means.

It is more in some ways to some specialties and practices, that doesn't mean that's what I want to do with my life. Far from it. To make that much I essentially have to grit my teeth and be okay with working in a system designed for the elite who can afford my services, I'll be honest it also gets extremely boring with only the occasional satisfaction. But after you help get the Xth rich kid into med school it fades quick.

It also requires you to consistently have 40hrs a week of tutoring at that price point to equal a physician, which is a lot of work in and of itself, and so when you tackle on that plus prepwork those hours can add up - in a job with no security, benefits, etc.. but there are people who DO this. They have MDs and then run their own tutoring company and stopped practicing. I mean look at something like this:

Best MCAT Prep Courses & Tutor NYC

Our esteemed MCAT tutor and MCAT class improve your MCAT score in New York! Our in-person & online MCAT Preparation help you master the MCAT exam!

www.manhattaneliteprep.com

$1580 for 12hrs of private coursework. That's $130 an hour. That company then contracts a tutor for like $25-30hr. They get $100 bucks a pop with very little overhead.

 

[TelemarketingEnigma]

I've mentioned this before in similar threads, but I briefly had a side hustle assistant teaching classes for a creative/athletic hobby of mine. It was NOT lucrative and made zero dent in loans - main reason I did it was because this is an otherwise expensive hobby that would have been difficult to fit in a med school budget otherwise, and by teaching i got to do my hobby for free + earn some beer money. It doubled as workout time too since it's a physical activity. Even still, I stopped teaching during 2nd year when med school demands increased

 

[TragicalDrFaust]

Message me. Prefer not to go into detail publicly in order for this account to remain semi-anonymous. I do a couple things, not extremely lucrative but all doable by the average medical student. If you’d prefer not to message, upwork is a good place to start. recommend having a colleague or mentor help you identify lucrative skills you have.

 

[mrbreakfast]

To make that much I essentially have to grit my teeth and be okay with working in a system designed for the elite who can afford my services, I'll be honest it also gets extremely boring with only the occasional satisfaction.

Hate to say it, but you may find your statements ironic in a few years...

And yeah, I know people who quit med school for tutoring and do quite well for themselves. I tutored for a big company years ago, and while their pay scale is complicated, when I was tutoring the base pay (flat rate per class) was such that the company only needed a single student to enroll per class to turn a profit. The reason to work for one of the big companies is that the promotions you can get to full-time positions - in things like content development - can pay quite, quite well, and the pay scale (which is based on need) can potentially offer great gigs: if the company would make $60K on a course that they'd otherwise have to cancel and you're the only one available to teach it, the pay/hour they'll offer can be very high. But that's obviously not side gig territory.


My overall advice to any med student would be to study hard and otherwise enjoy your 20s to their fullest. You'll be rich and tired in your 30s.

 

[jamaica jan sun princess]

1. Create a business that provides a service that people need regularly. Once you have their info, reoccurring customers don't cost anything($ or effort) to acquire.
2. Build business and acquire as many customers as possible.
3. Shortly before medical school starts, hire and train someone to perform your service.

 

[LunaOri]

One of my friends had a cake decorating business--took orders for special occasion cakes.

 

[collegestud2013]

Hey all! I've been lucky enough to be accepted to my first choice school and will be starting classes in August. I'm currently working in clinical research and will be transitioning out of my job over the summer before school, ending a week or two before classes start. As much as I've enjoyed the job and the experiences I gained that helped me get into school, the pay definitely wasn't enough for me to build up any substantial savings before school. I'm hoping to take the typical advice to make the most of my summer before school - travel, time off, etc - but the financial aspect of this all is really starting to hit me. I'm mostly worried about the period before student loans are disbursed, when I'll have to cover costs associated with moving, deposits for a new apartment, furnishing the apartment, undergrad student loan payments, etc.

I'm wracking my brain coming up with a side hustle that wouldn't be an insane amount of effort on top of my full-time job, maybe even one that I could continue into school provided that it didn't take up too much my time. For those of you who didn't have any help with these costs from parents/others and didn't have much in savings, how did you swing it? Do y'all have any ideas for ways to make some extra cash on the side that would be feasible to continue into school?

As others have mentioned, be careful of the amount of time you commit to part-time employment in med school. It's probably more doable nowadays during MS1 and 2 with Step 1 being pass/fail, and especially if your school's pre-clinical years are true pass/fail. It will be harder during MS3 and first part of MS4 year. It's also not worthwhile if you're only going to make $20-30/hr and those are busy hours (ie no downtime to study). Even at $60-80/ hr, it's still probably going to only offset a small amount of the $200-300k that med school typically costs these days with the amount of time you have. If your parents can't help out, you don't have significant personal savings/assets already, and you can't get any need or merit based scholarships from your school or outside sources, and you already go to an expensive med school in the first place, you'll probably be stuck just taking out more loans for the most part and slowly paying them off down the line, or going for PSLF (which is not guaranteed and limits your future employment options).

Investing when you have loans only makes sense if your rate of return from your investments consistently is above your loan interest. You need to have some risk tolerance for this the typical 4-6% interest rate seen on student loans is guaranteed while the type of investments you need to make to get expected returns above those numbers definitely isn't guaranteed.

 

[pigsinacloth]

As others have mentioned, be careful of the amount of time you commit to part-time employment in med school. It's probably more doable nowadays during MS1 and 2 with Step 1 being pass/fail, and especially if your school's pre-clinical years are true pass/fail. It will be harder during MS3 and first part of MS4 year. It's also not worthwhile if you're only going to make $20-30/hr and those are busy hours (ie no downtime to study). Even at $60-80/ hr, it's still probably going to only offset a small amount of the $200-300k that med school typically costs these days with the amount of time you have. If your parents can't help out, you don't have significant personal savings/assets already, and you can't get any need or merit based scholarships from your school or outside sources, and you already go to an expensive med school in the first place, you'll probably be stuck just taking out more loans for the most part and slowly paying them off down the line, or going for PSLF (which is not guaranteed and limits your future employment options).

Investing when you have loans only makes sense if your rate of return from your investments consistently is above your loan interest. You need to have some risk tolerance for this the typical 4-6% interest rate seen on student loans is guaranteed while the type of investments you need to make to get expected returns above those numbers definitely isn't guaranteed.

I slightly disagree with this statement. Investing with the goal of using that money to pay off the loans is by no means a guarantee and I agree with you on that end, but investing for long term gains is still valuable. So like lets say you make some money the summer between M1 and M2, if you can afford to put that into something like a ROTH IRA its well worth it to invest that money.

 

[obiwan]

It seems all the rage now amongst these millenial medical students is doing day in the life vlogs or study alongside with me on Youtube

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

I slightly disagree with this statement. Investing with the goal of using that money to pay off the loans is by no means a guarantee and I agree with you on that end, but investing for long term gains is still valuable. So like lets say you make some money the summer between M1 and M2, if you can afford to put that into something like a ROTH IRA its well worth it to invest that money.

Especially when there is a small chance that the loans might be cancelled. Anybody with a significant chunk of money who pays cash instead of federal loans is misguided imo. I’m talking about direct loans only, since the rates should be able to be surpassed by the market.

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

If anyone is able to land a gig like this as an MCAT tutor, drop out of med school, as this is more per hour than most physicians make.

No it's not

 

[SCallergydoc]

I scribed class notes. Made me pay attention more and was able to review as I typed them up. Pay was okay but kept me focused. Later on I worked for the IV team.

 

[PhD_to_DO]

Ideally, as everyone has said, you shouldn’t work while in medical school. However, some of us do have to hold down something for whatever reason. In my case, though I have to wear speacial contact lenses out of medical necessity, insurance does not cover them (they cost $900/each). I also have a 11 year old son and it wouldn’t be fair of me to put all of the financial onus of his care on his mother just because I decided to go back to medical school at 49. I have masters degrees in pharmacology and public health so I’m “teaching” online pharmacology, medical terminology, and public health courses (about 30k year). The key for me was finding the right situation in terms of a school that 1) Uses a standard curriculum and has their own course building team 2) Is totally asynchronous and 3) Doesn’t require adjunct faculty to participate in departmental meetings and such. I teach two classes per quarter. I have to respond to emails within 48 hours and I spend an hour on Saturday and an hour on Sunday grading assignments. So far, I’ve managed the work load well between my OMS-1 coursework and my side gig but let me emphasize again that it took a lot of searching to find what I felt would be the right situation and it takes careful scheduling on my part to make sure that I don’t pick up a class with a large work load that would keep me from my medical studies. If you don’t have to work, don’t but if you do, find something that won’t be demanding of your time.

 

[Ganon]

My best advice as someone who decided to be a COVID RN during MS2/MS3/MS4 is to absolutely not.

 

[Redpancreas]

You will not meaningfully offset $100-300K by dog walking, driving for Uber, or anything else.

Pick a high paying specialty. Avoid delaying attending-hood via research years in school or residency (yes i’m looking at you every academic/semi-academic gen surg program).

You really won’t have an effective amount of capital to make money with until you’re an attending.

I would disagree with this. Pick a specialty you enjoy practicing. Choosing a field for salary just to offset loans which will be paid off in 5-10 years anyways would set you up for bigger problems. Of course, if there's one field that paid $500K for 3 years residency vs. one that paid $50K after 10 years, then maybe question the enjoyment aspect.

 

[parquetshorts]

If you absolutely need more spending money during the school year, donate plasma once a week when you have time off, and just do some review while you're donating. Otherwise, I agree with what others have said. No side hustle will significantly offset the high amount of debt you'll likely accrue. There's also nothing wrong with taking out an extra few thousand in loans per year to ensure that you're living comfortably; 8-10k extra in debt doesn't make much of a difference compared to the 6 figure debt you'll likely have to accrue.