I get a little job

A few months ago, I was trying to figure out how to deal with some complicated data for my dissertation, and I contacted a professor in another department who works with the same data. She was very nice and gave me some good advice. At the meeting, she mentioned that she would be looking for an RA in the future, and that I might be a good person to ask since I was already working with this data. I told her that I was very interested, but didn't hear anything else for a couple of months.

Today, she e-mailed me to ask if I would be interested in working 5 hours per week for several months, earing $16 per hour on a project that sounds very cool. It's not something that relates to my academic work, but it's something that I read about all the time. She also told me there is a possibility of co-author credit on future publications.

This is the perfect opportunity for my situation. I know I need to start saving for summer, but I don't want to get a time-consuming job in January because I need to spend these next few months on my dissertation. Working five hours per week will allow me to start saving money while still spending most of my time on my dissertation. Then, if I don't have a teaching job lined up by around April, I can start applying for random jobs.

I still need to figure out something lucrative before summer, but this will definitely help. And it all came from reaching out to someone I didn't know and asking a few questions. I had no idea I was making a connection that would help me for months.