42 Best Summer Jobs for College Students

Caddy

• How Much Can You Earn?: $60.00 per bag carried, plus tips
• Full or Part Time Work?: Part Time
• Best For: All Students & All Majors

Hit the links, or at least traverse them with golf bag in tow, as a seasonal golf course caddy. In the world of golf, caddies play the important role of guide, motivator, and club handler all rolled into one polo-wearing assistant.

Non-pro caddies can expect to earn an average of $60.00 per carried bag, plus tips. Try to find work at high-end country clubs and pricey private courses since, as a general rule of thumb, golfers tip caddies 40 to 50 percent of the cost of the green fee.

Caddies act as on-green advisors and player confidant, so you’ll need a level head and ability to think on your feet. Students looking to enter financial, business or legal fields post-graduation will benefit from the quick decision making and interpersonal skills developed in a summer on the green.

A love of the outdoors is a must as is being able to tell the difference between an iron, wood, and putter. Caddies put in a lot of hard work but are rewarded for their efforts, especially when they help golfers play a particularly good game.

Tour Guide

• How Much Can You Earn?: $250.00 per week
• Full or Part Time Work?: Part Time
• Best For: Cultural Studies, History, Visual and Performing Arts

Spend your summer discussing general points of interests and fun facts when you work as a tour guide. Museums and other attractions need all hands on deck in the summer months when schools are out and family vacations are at an all-time high.

Tour guides at museums, aquariums, zoos, botanical gardens and similar attractions earn more than those working at amusement parks. For seasonal guides, hourly rates tend to hover right around the $10.00 mark.

If you are interested in history, art, horticulture, or marine life, you’ll get to share your enthusiasm with others and meet some valuable contacts along the way. No matter your interests or projected career path, one summer as a tour guide will improve your public speaking and leadership skills as you address and direct thousands of guests in the span of three short months.

Stop in at nearby attractions, museums, and landmarks to inquire about any seasonal tour guide positions. A local chamber of commerce will also be able to point you in the right direction.

Valet

• How Much Can You Earn?: $9.00 an hour, plus tips
• Full or Part Time Work?: Part Time
• Best For: All Students & All Majors

Aside from parking vehicles that are entrusted to their care, a valet must keep track of hundreds of cars on any given night. The logistics that goes into parking and retrieving so many vehicles based on a ticketing system is actually pretty impressive.

Base pay for valets hits right at $9.00 an hour on average. Valets also earn tips which, at about $2 to $5 per car, can boost hourly pay by as much as 50 percent.

Valets can find work at high-end restaurants, resorts, casinos, nightclubs, country clubs, and even large shopping malls. Many of these facilities see extra guests and visitors in the summer months, so seasonal workers are needed to help manage the extra activity.

To be a valet you don’t necessarily need to be a car buff, but you will need to be comfortable driving all kinds of vehicles including those with manual transmissions. Most of your shift will be spent outdoors even when inclement weather strikes, so being able to handle the elements all while providing five-star customer service are also a must.

Give Music or Voice Lessons

• How Much Can You Earn?: $50.00 to $100.00 per lesson
• Full or Part Time Work?: Part Time
• Best For: Performance Arts, Theatre, Education, Music Majors

Kids are out of school and parents are actively seeking ways to keep them busy during the long summer days. Offering music or voice lessons during the summer is a clever way to share your passion with others while getting paid.

As a seasonal private-lesson instructor, you can charge anywhere from $50.00 to $100.00 for a one-hour lesson. If you can book just a few students each week you can earn a pretty decent part-time income doing something you love.

To find clients, ask friends and family who may be interested in your services or know of someone who is. Posting flyers at rec centers and on church bulletin boards can generate some leads as can advertising in local papers and on social media.

Depending on the instruments you play and your comfort level with teaching, you can offer beginner, intermediate, or advanced lessons tailored to each student. If you are an education, music, or performance arts major, you will gain practical experience while you continue to perfect your own craft when you spend your summer teaching music to others.

Read More: How to Become a Piano Tuner. If you love piano and have an ear for tune, this may be a career path for you! Here’s what to know.

Nanny / Au Pair / Babysitter

• How Much Can You Earn?: Upwards of $600/week for nannies and au pairs; $9.00 an hour for babysitters
• Full or Part Time Work?: Full time for nannies and au pairs; Part time for babysitters
• Best For: Human Services, Healthcare, Education, Social Science Majors

You may have dabbled in a little babysitting while in high school and already know what it takes to successfully take charge of little ones. If not, know that it is a great summer job option that is a huge responsibility, but also one that is rewarding and a lot of fun.

Nannies, au pairs, and babysitters look after children and ensure their safety, but their roles in doing that vary quite a bit. Nannies and au pairs take on full-time roles and may live in or out of the household while babysitters step in every so often for a few hours here and there.

Whether you decide to take care of little ones full time or offer your services for short stints, you will gain a lot of hands-on experience teaching and guiding small children. If you are pursuing a career in education, human services, or healthcare this is a perfect opportunity to demonstrate your ability to guide children and also build up a list of references.

The amount you earn will depend on whether you work full time or part time, in-house or live-out. On average, full time nannies earn $600 a week and babysitters can charge a rate of about $9.00 an hour.

Read our related article on How to Become a Nanny for more information!

Retail Merchandiser

• How Much Can You Earn?: $10.00
• Full or Part Time Work?: Full Time & Part Time
• Best For: All Students & All Majors; Especially beneficial for sales, marketing, and advertising majors

With tons of summer promotions being advertised, retail stores constantly change their displays and other in-store advertisements with the season. Retail merchandisers are the ones responsible for making a product’s presence visually appealing while also keeping plenty of items in stock.

Merchandisers typically work as independent contractors and are assigned a chain of stores on a set route that they must visit on a weekly basis.

Greeting card companies, magazine distributors, and big names in the beverage industry often employ retail merchandisers to help them keep products on shelves while also attracting customers to their items with eye-catching displays.

A seasonal merchandiser can expect to earn $10.00 an hour and may even be reimbursed a certain amount for the mileage logged while visiting the stores on their route.

Students thinking about entering marketing and advertising careers post-graduation can gain a real world feel of how the right product placement or in-store advertisement can account for an increase in sales.

Start looking for seasonal positions in the spring from retail merchandising companies and not the retails stores themselves as merchandising is typically contracted out. There isn’t a lot of training involved, but you will likely need to pass a background check which will take some time to complete.

Charter Boat Deckhand

• How Much Can You Earn?: $13.00 an hour
• Full or Part Time Work?: Part Time
• Best For: All Students & All Majors; Especially beneficial for wildlife and fisheries majors

Read More: How to Become a Wildlife Photographer. Wildlife Photography can be a lucrative freelancing venture. Learn how to get started!

If a summer spent on the water sounds ideal, consider signing on as a charter boat deckhand. Fishing enthusiasts rent chartered boats so they can enjoy the day while a crew takes care of all the details.

As a charter boat deckhand, you will act as on-board customer service representative and make sure guests are having a good time. You will also take care of equipment, make sure the boat is clean, and help guests bait hooks, cast-off, and reel-in catches as needed.

States bordering the Gulf of Mexico have plenty of work available during the busy summer fishing season. Walk down local piers and docks, introduce yourself, and ask around about open positions since most hiring is done by word of mouth referrals.

For this summer job, you will need to know your way around a boat. Being an angler yourself is not only helpful but highly recommended as you will spend most of your days helping others learn how to fish.

Pay rates vary depending on how large of a fishing vessel you work on, but expect to earn somewhere around $13.00 an hour. There may even be opportunities for tips and end-of-the-season bonuses for a job well done.

Usher

• How Much Can You Earn?: $8.00 an hour
• Full or Part Time Work?: Part Time
• Best For: All Students & All Majors

Check tickets and help guests find their seats as a summertime usher. This customer service oriented position can also play a bit of a security role as you make sure guests get and stay seated where they should be during a concert or game.

As an usher, you can find work at a facility that suits your interests while also introducing you to valuable contacts. Stadiums, arenas, concert halls, and theatres are all options for summertime usher work.

Ushers earn an average of $8.00 an hour. Those working for pro sports teams will usually earn a flat rate per game since there’s no telling how long a sporting event will last, especially if it goes into overtime.

Depending on the venue, a summer job as an usher can be a valuable addition to the resume of students of multiple majors. Working at a music hall or theatre would be best for a performance arts or music major while an arena or stadium may be a better fit for an aspiring sports writer, broadcaster, or agent.

No matter what, this summer job option works on your your interpersonal skills and, as a bonus, gives you an opportunity to take in a few concerts or games at the same time.

Event Photographer

• How Much Can You Earn?: $15.00 an hour
• Full or Part Time Work?: Part Time
• Best For: Photography/Film/Video Majors

For aspiring pros or even hobbyist shutterbugs, a summer as an event photographer gives you an opportunity to fill your portfolio with actual paying gigs while also attending some fun summer events.

An event photographer may be called upon to capture weddings, corporate events, reunions, parades, trade shows or any occasion that needs to be documented through a lens. This may mean setting up staged shots with a professional eye for detail or simply capturing beautiful candid moments that otherwise would never be seen by others.

Event photographers, with little experience, can earn about $15.00 an hour when completing work on a freelance basis. You may even need to negotiate rates to include the costs of developing film and presenting prints in albums or frames.

Although you are working behind the camera, you will always need to have a focus on customer service when working an event. As an event photographer you need to delight guests, be able to bring out some photo-worthy moments, and direct people as necessary to create picture perfect moments.

Server

• How Much Can You Earn?: $2.13 an hour, plus tips; $400-$500 a week on average
• Full or Part Time Work?: Part Time & Full Time
• Best For: All Students & All Majors; Especially beneficial for hospitality majors

Put on an apron and spend your summers meeting tons of new people and helping them have an enjoyable dining experience when you work as a server. Servers are also responsible for maintaining restaurant cleanliness, answering telephones, taking to-go orders, and keeping tables and storage rooms fully stocked.

Being a server is more than taking food and drink orders and running trays to tables. As a server, you work on interpersonal skills as part of a large restaurant team, sharpen your public speaking abilities as you present specials to tables, and become a master of time management as you determine how and when to get things done in order to keep multiple tables and guests happy.

It is industry standard that servers make a low hourly wage, usually $2.13, which is then supplemented with tips. During a good week, servers can make between $400 and $500 working part time hours.

Local restaurants aren’t the only source of server work. You can also stop by country clubs, assisted living facilities, and banquet halls to find work on a seasonal basis.

This is a tried and true summer option for outgoing students who do some of their best work engaging with others in a setting that lets their personality shine.

Youth Group Worker

• How Much Can You Earn?: $7.25 an hour
• Full or Part Time Work?: Part Time
• Best For: Humanities, Theology, Religious Studies Majors

Different than a youth group leader or pastor, a youth group worker serves as guide and role model to young kids all while learning more about their own spiritual paths.

During the summer months, churches ramp up their youth group offerings by hosting day camps, get-togethers, and other events aimed at giving school-age children fun and safe summertime activities. Youth group workers step in to help support youth pastors with spiritual outreach and assist with supervising large groups of kids.

Students studying theology and religious studies will enjoy working a summer job that allows them to share their passion with others while exploring a career in youth ministry. The average pay hovers right around $7.25 an hour.

Local churches and ministries always welcome inquiries from students who are thinking about spending their summer within the church, so be sure to stop by the next time you’re in town to say hello and ask about taking on a supervisory role within the church during the summer.

National Park Services

• How Much Can You Earn?: Stipend of $1,000 to $6,000
• Full or Part Time Work?: Full Time
• Best For: All Students & All Majors

A summer spent working within the National Park Services isn’t just for aspiring park rangers. There are hundreds of job opportunities here that are just waiting to be explored.

Botanist, historian, geologist, and biologist are just a few of the positions summer students can try first-hand at one of the more than 400 parks across the United States.

National Park Services jobs can be found by checking a park’s website directly or by visiting USAJobs and searching for available student positions.

Students are typically paid a stipend to cover expenses related to their three-month stint as a National Park Services employee. Depending on the post you take and nature of your responsibilities, you could be paid anywhere from $1,000 to $6,000 for the entire summer.

If you’d like to call the great outdoors your office over the summer, the National Park Services is the perfect place to really get your hands dirty.

Landscaper/Groundskeeper

• How Much Can You Earn?: $12.00 an hour
• Full or Part Time Work?: Full Time
• Best For: Botany, Agriculture, Horticulture Majors

Few things scream summer more than the sound of lawn mowers and the site of lush lawns. Summer is the season for tending to all the things that sprouted in the spring and the busiest time of year for landscapers.

If you enjoy the outdoors and have somewhat of a green thumb, a seasonal job as a groundskeeper gives you an opportunity to flex your landscaping muscle while getting plenty of fresh air.

Groundskeepers may work at apartment complexes, business, or parks and work to keep outside areas green and healthy. Landscapers tend to focus on residential areas and help homeowners maintain their yard’s curb appeal.

Mowing grass, trimming hedges and trees, fertilizing, planting, and tending to flowers, plants, and grass are the basic responsibilities of groundskeepers. Keeping all your equipment clean and in working order is also expected.

Aspiring botanists, horticulturists, and arborists are prime candidates for seasonal landscaping work since they can apply what they’ve learned in school to real world situations and discover new techniques along the way.

Groundskeepers earn about $12.00 an hour and may be expected to work long days in order to get all the things done on their to-do list.

Canvasser

• How Much Can You Earn?: $9.00 an hour
• Full or Part Time Work?: Part Time
• Best For: Political Science Majors

Collect information and spread the word of worthy causes as a summertime canvasser. As a canvasser, you might work busy street corners passing out flyers, collect signatures on petitions, or initiate impromptu interviews and document answers.

Canvassers are usually employed by nonprofits, grassroots initiatives, political organizations, and government agencies. They’re a combination of interviewer and salesperson rolled into one.

Tasks range from soliciting donations to persuading people to support a cause. To do this well, you need tons of professionalism and a thick enough skin to push through even after you’ve been turned down.

Students contemplating a career in government or politics will get a chance to see how campaigns and causes are funded at the ground-level as a summertime canvasser for a government agency or political candidate.

The average pay is somewhere around $9.00 an hour with the potential for performance-based bonuses.

If you are a people person and consider yourself to be persuasive, put your skills to good use while promoting a cause you believe in as a canvasser for the summer.

Construction Worker

• How Much Can You Earn?: $14.00 an hour
• Full or Part Time Work?: Full time with overtime likely
• Best For: All Students & All Majors; Especially beneficial for architects and engineers

The summer season is the busiest time of year for the construction industry. Although most of the seasonal work you’ll find falls under the laborer category, it is still a valuable opportunity for students to gain first-hand experience and build their resumes.

Engineers and architects may gain the most out of a summer construction job, but future developers, lenders, and real estate agents can also learn a thing or two while strengthening their industry knowledge.

A seasonal construction worker can earn about $14.00 an hour while working full time. Since this time of year is so busy for the industry, there are often overtime opportunities which can amount to a pretty impressive paycheck each week.

A lot of construction workers are hired on by word-of-mouth, so be sure to introduce  yourself and ask around to developers, contractors, and subcontractors if they or anyone they know is looking for summer help.

If you don’t mind getting your hands dirty, a summertime construction job offers plenty of steady work and gives you practical experience.

Read our related article on How to Become a Heavy Equipment Operator for more information on work in construction.

Swim Instructor

• How Much Can You Earn?: $10.00 an hour
• Full or Part Time Work?: Part Time
• Best For: All Students & All Majors

Spend your days in the pool teaching others basic strokes and overall water safety as a summer swim instructor. This summertime job is ideal for active students who will enjoy teaching others a lifelong skill.

If a summer as a swim instructor sounds perfect, start preparing for the role well in advance. To work as a swim teacher, you will need to take and pass a series of courses and get trained in CPR before you ever hit the water.

Classes and certifications will take about 20 hours to complete and can set you back a couple hundred dollars in total. But having safety and first aid certifications not only helps you land a summertime job, it looks great on your resume, too.

Students wanting to teach post-graduation can learn how to effectively guide students one-on-one and in a group setting as a swim instructor.

Local YMCAs and aquatic centers regularly hire seasonal swim instructors. The pay rate runs about $10.00 an hour for this fun and rewarding summertime job.

Cruise Line Worker

• How Much Can You Earn?: $12.00-$15.00 an hour
• Full or Part Time Work?: Full Time
• Best For: All Students & All Majors; Especially beneficial for hospitality majors

Getting paid to travel is a dream job for many, and a summer stint as a cruise line worker is one way to fulfill that dream.

Cruise lines are especially busy in the summer months and welcome the extra hands of seasonal employees to help with all the added guests. You can go out to sea and live onboard a luxury liner or stay local with daily riverboat or short weekend tours.

Cruise ships offer all the amenities of a hotel on the water, so there are all sorts of positions to consider. Housekeeping, servers, entertainers, customer service, and attendant jobs are readily available for seasonal workers.

One summer on a cruise ship will give you plenty of experience working as part of a tight-knit team while getting an opportunity to take in some beautiful sites and scenery.

Pay rates will vary depending on the cruise company you work for and the role you assume, but on average, cruise line workers earn $12.00-$15.00 an hour plus room and board if you stay on the ship.

Sign Spinning

• How Much Can You Earn?: $8.00 to $10.00 an hour
• Full or Part Time Work?: Part Time
• Best For: All Students & All Majors; Especially beneficial to performance arts majors

Put your showmanship on full display over the summer as a sign spinner. Sometimes called human billboards, sign spinners are tasked with drawing attention to stores, sales, and other specials.

Sign spinners are a popular and effective way for businesses to promote summer sales or simply remind customers about a service. As a sign spinner, you are expected to put on a bit of a show so that you catch the eye of motorists and pedestrians walking by.

Being outgoing and a natural performer are a must as is being able to manage an entire shift outside in the summer sun.

Sign spinners can expect to earn $8.00 to $10.00 an hour and work part time. You can find work at apartment complexes, restaurant, and retail stores.

Sign spinning can be a fun summertime job for the right students. Those interested in pursuing a career in performance arts will benefit the most from this job that lets you take center stage.

Internship

• How Much Can You Earn?: Possibly unpaid
• Full or Part Time Work?: Full Time
• Best For: All Students & All Majors

An internship is one tried and true way to gain plenty of work experience relevant to your industry over the course of a summer.

While you can gain plenty of practical experience and get an opportunity to apply what you’ve learned so far in school to everyday situations, an internship doesn’t always pay.

Keep in mind, even an unpaid internship offers the ability to explore a career you are interested in, introduces you to valuable connections along the way, and gives you an industry-specific entry on your resume. So, lack of pay may very well be secondary to the tons of experience gained in one short summer as an intern.

Start inquiring about internship opportunities in the fall as most companies prepare well in advance for summer interns. If you have your heart set on working for a company that doesn’t readily advertise internships, don’t be afraid to ask.

While many companies post summer internship opportunities, many more are receptive to the idea if approached by an interested student who can demonstrate that they’d be a valuable addition to the company for the summer.

Courier/Messenger

• How Much Can You Earn?: $13.00 an hour
• Full or Part Time Work?: Full Time
• Best For: All Students & All Majors

Especially popular in large cities and metropolitan areas, couriers and messengers are responsible for hand-delivering mail and packages with a focus on speed and security.

As a seasonal messenger, you can find work for a delivery company that employs a fleet of couriers or for a large corporation that has a lot of time-sensitive deliveries that need to be made on a daily basis.

Local messengers and deliverers can earn about $13.00 an hour on average when working a full-time schedule. To be successful, you need to be able to work with a sense of urgency while remaining highly organized.

A summer as a courier will demonstrate to future employers that you have what it takes to meet daily deadlines and can responsibly handle sensitive and confidential documents. It also gives you a chance to brush up on your customer service skills as you will spend a good deal of time interacting with others.

Entrepreneur

• How Much Can You Earn?: Endless opportunities to earn
• Full or Part Time Work?: Part Time & Full Time
• Best For: All Students & All Majors; Especially beneficial to business majors

If you can’t decide what you want to do with your time over the summer or all the opportunities available just don’t seem to be a good fit, why not create your own job?

Being an entrepreneur, even for the summer, will give you the chance to develop your business skills and demonstrates to future employers that you have the drive to succeed. It is also opens up endless networking opportunities as you market your services around town and meet plenty of people along the way.

To develop a successful summertime business or service, look around your community for inspiration. You may find that a landscape or lawn care service is needed or that offering your services as a courier, tutor, or sitter is where the most opportunities lie.

There are endless possibilities to finding and developing an in-demand summertime business that lets you take full charge of your earning potential.

Students contemplating a career in business will get a firsthand chance to see how they can turn an idea into a money-making opportunity while learning a lot from their successes and failures. Plus, it’s one of the best entries you can place on your resumes to show future employers that you’ve got the tenacity to take an idea and run with it as far as you can.