#10 Bartender

Potential Earnings: $200-$500/nt
You'll probably make: $150-$300/nt
Pros: Very social and fun job to have in college. You're everyone's best friend when the bar gets full.
Cons: You need to work late nights, which can get in the way of school. Depending on your school?s surrounding city, tips can be pretty stingy. Pay can vary dramatically from night to night.
Ideal Candidate: You like spending time in bars and conversing with strangers. It's also a plus if you aren't offended by creepy, old men staring at your butt.
Inside Scoop: This job is usually most enjoyable at a local bar where your friends like hang out. It?s also a plus when you can you stomach fluctuations in income for slow nights, slow weeks, etc.
First Stop: Call all of your favorite local bars. Try to find a place you?d frequent if you weren?t even working there.

#9 Designer

Potential Earnings: Web Designer: $46/hr; Graphic Designer: $49/hr; Illustrator: $41/hr 3D: $43/hr
More Realistic Earnings: $20-$25/hr
Pros: Huge market with varying needs. Many people can tolerate working with newbies if you prove yourself reliable and trustworthy. Also, since everyone and their mom wants a website, you can probably use personal connections to get started.
Cons: Foreigners on traditional freelancing sites offer lower prices that hurt your competitive edge. However, their work is often lower quality, as well, and people are wary of their template-esque designs.
Ideal Candidate: You have an eye for design and are a whiz on Photoshop ? plus you have some spare time to conquer any learning curve. Obviously, this job is a no-brainer for Graphic Design/Web Design students.
Inside Scoop: A nicely crafted portfolio can often ?be enough to woo your first clientele.
First Stop: Take a look at the projects on our site: here you'll only compete with other students for work. (A huge reason we created this site.) Also, sites like elance.com and ProgrammerMeetDesigner.com are ?good places to look if you're more interested in a "long-term" project.

#8 Writer

Potential Earnings: $20-$50/hr
More Realistic Earnings: $10-$40/hr
Pros: If you like to write, this can be a great deal of fun. Plus, it?s very difficult for "cheap foreign labor" to compete with you.
Cons: Getting work is slow at first, sometimes painfully slow. But if you establish yourself as a quality freelancer, it should gradually increase with word-of-mouth.
Ideal Candidate: You like to write, and have a strong grasp of varied styles and mediums. A good understanding of marketing/ad copy is a huge plus.
Inside Scoop: The amount of money you make largely depends on the type of projects you take on. For instance, crafting a professionally designed/edited resume can easily net you $200.

#7 Under Cover Detective

Potential Earnings: $300/hr
More Realistic Earnings: $0 (This job will probably take place in your imagination, where the pay is minimal.)
Pros: You can go fun adventures and solve mysterious, exotic crimes. People will call you "Detective," which seems like it would be pretty cool.
Cons: You have to wear a trench coat, regardless of the weather.
Ideal Candidate: You have a wild imagination and like playing "Clue."
First Stop: Your local drug dealer - to get the imagination flowing.

#6 Photographer

Potential Earnings: $50-$70/hr
More Realistic Earnings: $20-$50/hr
Pros: If you?re an artistic type, this can be a dream come true. You can build a great portfolio of work while making some serious loot. You can also impress campus cuties with the "professional" pictures you mount on your wall ("err... that old thing, I was shooting some models for a client").
Cons: It?s a referral heavy industry that?s notoriously difficult to break into.
Ideal Candidate: You?ve got an eye for art and can cruise a while without a steady stream of income.
Inside Scoop: It?s a great idea to kick-start your portfolio with photographs from in-class projects. Many schools have pre-professional programs for photography that can get your foot into some doors. If not online is always a possibility.

#5 Marketing Rep

Potential Earnings: $500/mnth
More Realistic Earnings: $300/mnth
Pros: You get paid promote cool events and give out free stuff.
Cons: You?re usually paid on a monthly basis which comes out to about $.01/hr.
Ideal Candidate: You?re social and love promoting things you?re passionate about.
First Stop: Many big companies have "brand amabassadors" or similarly named positions. If you already have a certain brand in mind, go ahead and google [the company?s name] + ?campus rep." You?ll be surprised at how many programs you find.

#4 Researcher

Potential Earnings: $25/hr
More Realistic Earnings: $15/hr
Pros: You can learn on the job, apply your knowledge directly to your work, and gain personal mentorship from people in the associated field.
Cons: Pay is pretty bad, and so are the hours.
Ideal Candidate: You enjoy academia or picture a future in it.
Inside Scoop: Not the best paying job we?ve listed here, but chicks dig braniacs, and this job might help propel you into that category.
First Stop: Ask professors or lab director, depending on major.

#3 Programmer/Software Engineer

Potential Earnings: $49-$73/hr
More Realistic Earnings: $30-$50/hr
Pros: Plenty of work out there for competent programmers. Even if you aren't ready to work for Google yet, you can make good money using your "entry-level" or first year skills to program/hack your typical PHP/MySQL scripts.
Cons: As with design, competition from foreign workers often drives down prices. Unlike design, you can't just go around asking your family if they need some work done on their MySQL database.
Ideal Candidate: Comp Sci/Engineer. You have a core curriculum in programming and are ready to make some decent money.
Inside Scoop: If you're looking for a job as a Programmer or Software Engineer, you need experience. Obviously, full-time summer internships provide the best work atmosphere (despite lack-luster pay). But during the year, freelancing is an amazing alternative. You can make more beer money in one night than most ugly stippers make in an entire week.
First Stop: Right here, yo. Plenty of programming freelance work to be found just a couple clicks away.

#1 (Tie) Entrepreneur

Potential Earnings: $10,000,000,000
More Realistic Earnings: $TBD
Pros: You could be the next Mark Zuckerberg (23 year old Founder of Facebook).
Cons: You could be the next nobody McGee.
Ideal Candidate: You have passion, follow-through, and a kick-ass original idea. There is no better time to become an entrepreneur than in college ? after all, that?s when? Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Yahoo all got started.
Inside Scoop: It?s an uphill battle. Nothing is guaranteed.
First Stop: Several sites are always populated with ambitious, passionate workers. Surf through the listings on ProgrammerMeetDesigner.com and meet some like-minded folks.

#1 (Tie) Stripper

Potential Earnings: $500-$1000/nt
Realistic Earnings: $500-1000/nt
Pros: Isn?t work always better when you?re naked?

Cons: Um? nothing comes to mind.
Ideal Candidate: Attractive, Young, Crazy (?)
Inside Scoop: Depending on where your college is located, your earning power differs. Those dancing in major cities like Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York and Miami are primed to pull in some big dollars.