How to Make Money at MIT by Aiden H. '28

As someone who is notably not a millionaire, I started working in high school once I turned 16. And while a lot of students at other universities might continue to work off-campus jobs, this is very much not the culture at MIT. Considering that the workload here is commonly referred to with the strength of a firehose, hydrant, or any other painful form of water you can think of,⁠01 water-ballooned, anyone? there wasn’t a realistic way for me to continue to serve 30 hrs/week like I used to. The good news is you don’t have to be an OnlyFans model entrepreneur to have some side hustles at MIT.

Unfortunately, the only blog posts about jobs I could find are both from 2008, and general inflation means that they’re $8.00/hr sounds borderline illegal.

Consider this a semi-comprehensive list of options at/around MIT to do passively throughout the school year, in the random and subjective order I thought of them/was told about them.

Note #1: I have of course not worked all of the following jobs in my ~6 months here and all benefits/cons are mostly from talking to others or found online. Consider this more a list of opportunities to look into than a review of what jobs are most worth it.

Note #2: As of AY2024-2025, MIT minimum wage for students is $16.00/hr. Unless otherwise specified, assume all directly MIT-associated jobs to be at this rate.

UROP⁠02 Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program /ELO

The go-to MIT⁠03 I just found out other schools use the term UROP for their undergraduate research and I feel so unspecial. work experience. There are a lot of blogs on UROPs already, so I won’t beat anyone over the head with it too hard, but their importance to the MIT experience can’t really be understated. It’s research at the top research university.

UROPs are technically a part of a larger ELO⁠04 Experiential Learning Opportunities program, but UROPS are the most common as they tend to be more accessible, known about, and specialized to major. Other ELO options include teaching/learning programs where students can teach students or gain internships that are not typically research-based (because then it would actually be UROP, but like same diff it doesn’t change what you would actually do per project).

UROPs are super common and have a lot of resources behind them (hence, the UROP office). This makes them an “easier” option to work during the semester, or at least more socially acceptable in a sense. Instead of having to work a random barista job that realistically will not contribute to your future career, UROPs are very educational for both research and industry experience (aka super resume-able).

However, everything depends on the project. Because these are more freelance-hiring style research jobs, trying to decide between multiple projects or knowing who you should work with is difficult, especially if you have a mid-semester major crisis and decide you want to completely switch everything you’re doing. Also, funding is not guaranteed. UROP students have to submit an online application at the start of each term appealing to the school for their project to be funded. Depending on the department the UROP is in, this can range from very possible to extremely unlikely (e.g. CSAIL⁠05 Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory has a lot more research funding than, say, [“Department of Materials Science Engineering”]DMSE[/annotation]).

Base Pay: $16.00/hr for a max of $2400 a semester (Fall/Spring) or $7680 for summer

More info on UROPs here

Dorm Desk Worker

MIT has undergraduate students work the mail desk in the dorms. Students who work desk are allowed and encouraged to work on other things while at the desk, given that when someone needs their package you do your job. Depending on the dorm and term, schedules are either all pick-up (you sign up for as many shifts you want each week when the schedule is released) or a set schedule for all employees is agreed upon at the beginning of the term.

Unlike an intense UROP or off-campus job, no one’s working 10-20 hours a week at the desk. This is a great option for people looking for very passive income so that you have some extra fun-cash lying around. Also considering the workload here, it doesn’t hurt to have a noncommittal role that others are willing and eager to cover for. Also, the ability to do other work makes the commitment a lot less time-consuming. If you’re already sitting at your desk psetting, there’s no reason you shouldn’t sit at a different desk doing the same thing just to get paid for it.

Library Desk Worker

This is pretty much the same as above, but the schedules are a little more strict and the tasks are more library/tech-based than grabbing mail.

To my knowledge, the libraries hire at the start of each term, but any open roles can be found here.

Blogger

You know this one (it’s this)!!

We write blogs at our own pace through WordPress, have a Slack to ask questions/make casual fun of each other, and meet every other week in the Admissions Office for an official meeting (with INTENSE snacking involved).

In an effort to not seem biased, I shan’t list too many benefits, but there are no complaints.j We have very flexible hours/work. Bloggers are expected to post roughly twice a month, but there are no hard deadlines/angry bosses/lives lost if you push back a post. We post how ever much we want, pretty much whenever we want.

But, being a blogger is competitive, dare I say? Bloggers have to apply and be chosen to join, and this only happens once a year over the summer. It’s great! but not the most immediate/accessible option

Base Pay: $18.00/hr of writing or meeting

Find more about last year’s blogger admissions process here and the experience in this post.

Tour Guide

This is pretty self-explanatory, and common across colleges. MIT has some of its undergraduates give tours around campus while sharing their experience and memories, while taking questions.

This is easy because there’s not a lot to learn? You know you’re way around, so the hard part is just making sure everyone follows you. Also everything happens during normal working hours. MIT doesn’t give (official) tours around campus at midnight, so being a tour guide shouldn’t affect your sleep schedule/workload/time to do work at night.

Warning: mild cardio and talking to people is required.

Makerspace/Breakerspace Trainer

MIT has both Makerspaces and Breakerspaces that are run by students for students to, bluntly, make or break things. Students who have already undergone training (among other requirements) are able to train other students and/or monitor the use of the spaces. It’s like lifeguarding, but for science.

Find out more about Makerspace and Breakerspace

Tech Caller

Tech Callers are current MIT students who call out on behalf of the school to speak with alumni about their experience and ask for donations to the university. This is meant to serve as a more personal way for MIT to connect with alumni for donations.

Benefits include free food, low flexible hours, and a  Severance-styled⁠06 NO ONE TALK BAD ABOUT SEVERANCE IT BECAME MY ENTIRE PERSONALITY OVER IAP rewards system for who raises the most, including everything from shirts to movie tickets to an entire iPad.

Still, you have to call people older than you and ask for money, so there’s all that

Base Pay: $18.00/hr

Find out more about Tech Callers here.

Grading

Students whom have previously received an A/A+ in a class might be asked to be a grader for future semesters. It changes depending on the class and professor, but students are given psets/other homework for the class that they can grade according to a provided rubric/answer guide, and then return to the class TA’s within a certain time period.

Fortunately, this isn’t super labor intensive. A lot of graders I know will do it late at night or when they have a spare couple minutes to grade a few psets. The mental strength and effort it not that of a UROP, per se.

Base Pay: $16.00-$18.00/hr depending on the subject.

Find out more about being a math⁠07 I couldn't find any others on Google grader here.

TA

Similar to graders, some courses ( 8.01,⁠08 Physics 1: Classical Mechanics 8.02,⁠09 Physics 2: Electricity and Magnetism and sometime 7.01x⁠10 Intro Bio sections) have undergraduate TA’s. For physics, these are students who sit at the tables in the TEAL classroom⁠11 Technology Enable Active Learning. Basically flipped-learning where students attend physics classes for practice problems and examples, not lecture/new content that is provided asynchronously with the students as they work to help them with practice problems/answer questions.

Base Pay: $19.00/hr, plus $0.50/hr for each semester

Information Systems and Technology

There’s already a whole post about this–read it here!

Freelance SWE/Web Dev

This is not MIT-specific, but I’ve heard of a lot of computer science kids being freelanced to make the websites of start-ups/small businesses that maybe don’t have the same web development skills of an MIT student. This is pretty niche and it might be hard to find people, but if you have skills, use them!

Run MIT things? (science olympiad, ring premier, tech reunions, etc.)

MIT will often recruit students to run events on campus. These are most often mass-emailed to students, with different jobs for different rates at different times, but looking at the Events Calendar and emailing the organizers is an easy way to find out if they need any paid help for set-up/take-down.

Blackboard Cleaning

Some professors (I think 18.03 this semester??) will pay students $10 if they clean all of the whiteboards in 10-250 or 26-100⁠12 The two biggest lectures halls on campus before they start.

Benefits:

• Arm workout
• Easy
• You’re already there

Cons:

• Arm workout
• You have do that in front of everyone as they walk in
• Not a lot of money
• Not consistent

Lab Studies

In the middle of so much research, some human subjects are needed. Often individual lab websites will post calls for subjects with different compensation for the project. This is pretty tame, with almost nothing requiring more than an hour or two at a time over some period. If you care about privacy or random side effects, though, approach cautiously? (except no data gets leaked and to my knowledge nothing dangerous is tested on volunteers)

Everything Else

Anything else I didn’t mention (random tutor requests, people in the community needed a college student for literally anything) can be found on MIT’s official student job board through Student Financial Services, which you can peruse here.

That’s it, so go rise and grind and get that coin or something 💸💸💸