Top Skills For Students To Make Real Money

With rapid advancements in technology in literally every aspect of our lives, it is impossible for everyone to cope with them all. In comes the need for people who understand a particular field in-depth and can be your one-stop shop for that particular field. While technology is meant to make our lives simpler, most of the times you need to go train yourself to use it in the first place.

A simple example would be an image editing software like Photoshop. While Photoshop is an incredible piece of software that is highly sophisticated and powerful, it takes time to learn and familiarize yourself with the details of the software. Although if you take the time to learn you will be amazed at what you are capable of doing by the end of it, who really has the time to follow through and educate themselves?

This is where you come in. The skills that are listed here may seem complicated but what you really need is a dedication to sit down and learn. The internet offers amazing training tools. All you have to do is make a choice and then commit to it. If you get good at any of these skills, you will have added incredible value to yourself. In fact, you can start earning right now by selling these skills on freelancing websites. So here’s the list :

1. Website Development:

Now there are a lot of ways to do this, however, the one we suggest is WordPress. Why? Cause it’s extremely easy to learn and use. Not only is it easy to use for you as a developer, but it is also easy to use for someone who is just an editor and only wants to modify content on your website. WordPress trainings are available all over the internet. There are multiple websites that are solely dedicated to creating WordPress guides for beginners and they give out this information for free.

Understanding the basics like changing a theme or installing new plugins to improve your website’s functionality is simple and will not require a lot of time. However, if you really want to dive into the core of website development and want to be able to make as many changes as you wish, then you need to learn coding languages like HTML, CSS, PHP, and Javascript. Again, learning to code can be overwhelming at first, but there are tons of amazing tools available online that can teach you coding.

Codecademy.com is a website that teaches you coding by making you do it practically in a console box. It allows you to see right away how the output of your code looks. If you are ready to invest money into coding then lynda.com and teamtreehouse.com are both excellent websites to check out. You will find that making full utilization of these websites and properly learning will enable you to earn way more than the money you invested in learning.

2. Graphic Design and Image Editing:

For image editing, we are primarily going to talk about Photoshop because we feel it is really the best software when it comes to image editing. For creating images from scratch, Illustrator is great. InDesign is really good for posters or brochures that you will be printing. Starting with Photoshop though is nice because picking up the rest is easy once you understand how it works.

The demand for design is literally endless because every business requires a designer. Every button you see on a website, every background image, every logo, every poster, is all made by designers on these software packages. However, just knowing every tool in a software like Photoshop is not enough. If you have even a slight creative side, there is amazing stuff that you can do by knowing these tools.

Once again, the internet is filled with a lot of tutorials and guides on how to use these software packages, especially Photoshop since it is so popular. Lynda.com has some really great tutorials on Photoshop that we recommend. It is a paid website but you pay nothing compared to the learning opportunity you get. Another way of learning is to start with a design or editing basic stuff like a simple logo, removing background from a picture and look for guides online that will help you do these specific tasks.

The problem with this approach, however, is that your learning will not be structured and it will be limited to what you come across which might not always be the best thing. Apart from this, if you are looking forward to doing a well detailed graphic design course, then Goodlife Education is bringing you one this July! You can go to goodlifeeducation.com/upcoming-courses/ to know more.

3. Video Editing:

With the popularization of massive video sharing websites like YouTube, video editing can prove to be a really effective tool. Although YouTube has tools in its backend panel that allows you to edit videos right there, learning a video editing software like After Effects or Premiere Pro can allow you far greater depth. Other powerful and popular tools include Cyberlink Power Director, Corel VideoStudio and Nero Video. You can choose which software you want to work on, although we would recommend After Effects or Premiere Pro. Video editing can open up a lot of doors for you from mainstream media to film making. Apart from YouTube itself that offers you a lot of tutorials on video editing in detail, you can find courses on Udemy.com and Lynda.com that can really help you out. Adobe has video tutorials on its own website that are also really good for learning the software, so that’s another thing that you can look into.

4. Mobile App Development:

It is undeniable that the world is moving towards mobile applications. We have started spending more time on our phones than on our computer. Every business is looking into mobile app development to expand and the demand for individuals who can code Android and iOS apps is increasing every day. This field is promising and if you are interested you should start learning how to do this right now. Mobile app development will require you to be good at some coding languages (Java and the basics of XML for android, before you can get started and C/C++ for iOS) but learning to code is not difficult if you commit to it. One thing you should definitely try if you are inclined towards iOS app development is Xcode since it will make your life quite simpler. Tutorials on teamtreehouse.com are very good if you want to learn mobile app development. Since this skill pays a LOT, you will be able to recover your money quite easily within 2 months of focused study.

5. Content Writing :

The great thing about content writing is that you really don’t have to do a dedicated course if you are already good at English. Writing your own blog can really help you understand how content needs to be written and what kind of content is appreciated on the internet. The demand for content writers is huge because every website, every facebook page, every post, every product description, every sales pitch needs content. The essence of writing good content is in doing a good research so your ‘Googling’ skills must be on point.

Skills that can go really well with content writing are SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and creative design. Having SEO Training is amazing because it helps your article rank well on search engines like Google and Bing. Your earning opportunities will increase exponentially if you can write Search Engine Optimized articles.

Learning to search and make creatives is helpful because posts, blogs or facebook/twitter will always look better with a picture. If you still want to invest time in learning how to write well, you can simply Google (how to) creative/sales writing or copywriting and you will get good results.

There you have 5 of the hottest skills in demand right now. Freelancing is a great way to get started using these skills. You will gain a lot of experience and learn a lot of stuff about your skill as you start working. Also, you have an amazing earning potential if you start to put these skills to use on a freelancing website. You can learn and apply anything you want if you are dedicated to it.