A lot of students think that the only time to have a job is after you graduate. Nonetheless, some of them have learned that the sooner you get a job, the better. This explains the never ending anxiety, with regards to employment, that engulfs students as soon as they finish university education.
Waiting for graduation before you can find yourself what to do is like waiting for exams to draw in before you can prepare for them. It can be very disastrous.
There are so many opportunities to make money before one actually graduates. Suffice to note is that, it doesnt have to be within your line of profession. The goal at that moment is to earn some amount of income.
Income to help you meet you rent arrears (most of you refuse to go back to your father’s house), get yourself food and buy some household items to live with. Sometimes you get so comfortable in your hall of residence and realise you have wasted all those years when your roommate packs and goes with everything there is in the room. You’ve got to buy yours.
Here are the areas one can tap in as they await graduation;
1. Teaching
The nation will never have enough teachers. So many schools are getting established almost at the same rate as children are born. Being a teaching assistant at a nearby school/institution cannot take away your Economics degree and replace it with Education. As earlier noted, it doesnt have to be within your line of study.
If you had been bright at the university with a high CGPA, pulling the right strings can land you a similar job at your faculty/college.
At the end of the day, you are not just seated waiting for handouts from your parents.
2. Agriculture
You have vast waste lands in the village. Waste land in the sense that there is no activity taking place on it.
Agriculture doesnt necessarily mean you shall have to wake up at 5am and hit the garden with a hoe.
You have probably heard of tales of youths that have planted crops like maize for just a season and bought brand new motorcycles to do boda boda.
Basic agricultural skills are known to everyone, you dont have to take a short course in the study to be able to prosper at it. Similarly, you dont have to study it to be able to earn from it.
3. Transport
Sometimes you have so many vehicles parked at home, you have a driving permit but the only time you take one is when you are going to waste yourself away in a club/bar or when there is a girl you want to impress.
It is June and your graduation is probably in Dec/Jan, there is so much you can earn in that interval.
Thanks to Uber you dont have to go around town shouting out to passengers.
This is clean money that can be accummulated overtime and by graduation, atleast you wont have to rely on your mum to buy a graduation gown.
4. Innovation
This cares not whether you have graduated. We all know major innovators who are also major drop outs from school.
If your course has given you basic inventory and innovation skills and there is a chance to tap into it, go for it. You dont have to wait for a transcript.
You are a Food Science and Nutrition student and have seen fellow students making juice at campus. You are now in a district without any juice supplier but you dont want to invest in even a blender to change that because you are waiting for graduation to apply for a job Bella Wine manufacturers. 100% chances are that they started small too.
5. Performing Arts/Talents
The audience will not ask for degree qualifications if you know what you are doing.
Performing Arts has been broadened. From music to acting, now poetry can also be a major income earner.
This sector is where you unleash basic talent to earn income. Even football is catching up and footballers in Uganda are starting to earn good money.
At this stage, every one should know what they are good at and work to better it for the entertainment of others as a means of earning.
Who knows, you could be a celebrity by the time you go to apply for a job and your boss is a confessed fan.
Leave that comfort zone and go find yourself something to do as you await graduation.
