If any of you are college students like me, you find a paradox with the Untemplater lifestyle. You’ve read Tim Ferris, you’ve downloaded the Manifesto on this site, but this kind of lifestyle still seems utterly impossible.
This is because the typical university experience might be the clearest example of the template lifestyle. Think about it. A typical college student has class Monday through Friday, sometimes works a side job, often does homework late into the night, and usually doesn’t find time to travel for semesters at a time if ever.
Worry not, young grasshopper. There are ways to untemplate your college experience. It is possible to get a taste of the unorthodox lifestyle and still end up with a degree to fall back on. How? I thought you might never ask…
1. Work Remotely
One of the tenets of the new rich is to find a remote work arrangement. This is more possible in college than anywhere else. One way to work remotely is to be a brand representative on campus. From my own personal experience, I was the campus rep for a large PC company. I scheduled my own hours, ran my own campaign, worked by myself – remotely through conference calls and emails, and got paid hourly plus commission for units sold. This was the perfect college work arrangement. This growing trend of the hands on brand approach is dubbed experiential marketing. Search for an experiential marketing company and see if your campus is covered. If not, email them and propose that it should be.
There are, of course, other remote work arrangements available. Try to freelance yourself. This is another tactic I have used in college. Since I mainly work with social media and search engine optimization, I have contacted small marketing companies and asked if they needed any short term help. You’d be surprised how many do. In the overall scheme of things I understand that you probably want your own business and people freelancing for you. Why not try the opposite in college? You can learn about how freelancing works and get a taste of the Untemplater lifestyle at the same time.
2. Study Abroad
Is studying abroad expensive? Yes.
Are you still going to be tied down with classes and work while overseas? Most likely.
Is it the best experience you’ll have while in college? Absolutely.
My favorite part of my stay at my university wasn’t actually at my university. It was in Northern Ireland. Many people overlook study abroad options because they think they can’t afford it. I still paid a pretty penny, but I also applied for a scholarship which helped me out a lot. So many people completely ignore the scholarships available, you’d be surprised how much money you can receive.
Studying abroad is the perfect way to travel while still in school, still earn credit hours, and experience a different culture. Mine was in the summer, so it didn’t even take away a semester from my university experience. Go to the next informational meeting at your school and see what they offer today.
3. Personal Branding
You’re probably wondering how I managed to freelance for companies as a college student. Why would they ever think to hire me among their ranks? Welcome to the world of personal branding. You only are what you appear to be to the world. Personal branding in this day-in-age means building your social web online. This means having a strong presence on the big three networks: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, as well as maintaining a presence in the blogosphere. This is achieved by frequenting blogs of your expertise, commenting often, and eventually starting your own blog to act as the center of your social web.
Always work to expand your web. Try to blog at least once a week, if not more. The more you guest post on other blogs, the more people you drive to yours. Establish yourself as a guru on Twitter and people will take your tweets more seriously. Don’t sell yourself short. Reach out and try contacting other industry experts; in my experience, they usually reply. Get your swagger on, go brand yourself.
4. Start an Income Stream
We all know what income auto-pilot is right? Once you’ve established your own personal brand via free content, start making some revenue. If your blog receives a ton of traffic, maybe this just means advertising or joining an affiliate network to cover your beer expenses for the week. If you consistently put out great content, this could mean making a membership or premium section to your site. Or maybe this means taking some time and writing an e-book. Whatever the method, the goal is the same: start an automated income stream that takes care of itself and lets you do more important collegiate duties – you know, happy hours and forty hands.
5. Travel When Possible
Have you heard the Seinfeld skit about being a kid? He jokes about how the only thing on his mind was candy, 24/7. He would do anything for candy and it was the only thing in his brain all day. Well as a twenty-something, my candy is traveling.
I understand that college students are strapped for time and money; I am a college student myself. But by letting your resources rule your lifestyle, you are firmly establishing yourself as a regular nine-to-fiver. Do whatever you can to escape suburbia and explore the world while you’re young. I mentioned studying abroad earlier. This is a great way but not the only way. Most of my travel adventures in college have been through friends. One of my friends wanted to visit his dad in Bangkok and wanted a friend to come – I winded up buying a plane ticket and not much more. One friend had his 21st in Las Vegas, same story. Remember, when your friends have connections in places around the world, this often significantly reduces the cost of traveling. Maybe you will buy a plane ticket but won’t need lodging or food. Look for every opportunity to travel throughout college and pounce on the ones that are anywhere close to realistic. And never look back.
And there you have it – my guide to untemplating my college experience. These items are based on my personal experiences. What ways have you, the readers, come up with to break the mold?
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In addition to studying abroad, you could also choose to do your graduation project abroad. That’s a nice way to get started on living abroad for a longer period of time, you generally have few obligations (other than working on a project) and plenty of time to do other things if you plan it right.
Good suggestion – my school didn’t really have that option with our capstone, but if you can pull it off why not?
To untemplate my college experience I took a year off to learn some new skills and start my own micro business. When I go back to college in October those new skills will help me do freelancing work and building my iPhone apps while I’ll still be attending classes.
Also like Brian said, I’m going to try to stack my classes into as few days as possible. This way I hope to be able to work and do whatever I want with my spare time.
I agree with Financial Samurai. You kids have as much fun as you want, but don’t forget to get straight A’s, b/c it’s a competitive world out there, and you’ll be screwed if you don’t.
I think grades are overrated. Yeah, they carry some weight, but then again every job I’ve ever had was through a connection I made in the past in one way or another.
I guess what I’m saying is don’t forget about grades, but don’t forget about the other opportunities college offers – networking, leadership positions, internships etc.
I know its different for everyone in every situation, but I worked extremely hard keeping my grades up and my current employer never bothered to ask for a resume. Performance and experience trump grades.
Generally those who feel grades are overrated are from those who didn’t get good grades. It’s funny that way.
The best jobs post college actually have silent grade cut offs like a 3.5. If you don’t hvae a 3.5 or better, you won’t even get a foot in the door. Sure you can still get a job if you have under a 3.5 but do you want any job? Or do you want to work for the Googles, Facebooks, McKinseys, Bains, BCG, Goldmans, etc of the world or not? Might as well try and work for the best and give yourself a chance by getting the best grades possible.
People justify too much nowadays. One life to live. Just be the best.
Don’t know exactly what you’re implying, but I’m graduating Magna Cum Laude.
Good. Not implying anything, just that everybody should get good grades at the very LEAST. That’s just the starting point.
I really wish I had figured that out sooner. I spent 4 years banging my head against the wall, grade-wise and dropped out with a 2.72. When I came back to finish, that last year was a 3.9
Always good to finish strong!
I disagree, a good network will get you into those companies even faster.
Not that I would eve want to work for those companies.
And being the best is subjective. High grades don’t make you the best, they just make you the best at following orders.
Following orders is a good thing. What are you going to do at 22, right out of college, with no experience. Give orders?
Getting good grades is the MINIMUM everybody should have. You owe it to yourself or whoever is paying your tuition.
Thanks for sharing this article, it matches up quite nicely with a lot of things I’m already doing. I was lucky in that I had the advantage of some work experience and had begun my business before even starting university. I’m still in my first year so there is still a way to go but things are going amazing at university and the business is growing nicely.
The next part to get handled is some more travel… Having said that I do often get down to the coast (7hr drive) to go surfing and have some diving/dun excursions planned for the summer 🙂 Good luck with your travels and remeber to split your resources wisely if going this route!
Sounds fun man, I’m long overdue for a surfing trip.
Starting a business in college is hardly untemplated. I had three different ones myself. One was even passive income.
I think not letting your resources rule your lifestyle is a recipe for financial disaster. I lived beyond my means in college and now am paying back $10000 of credit card debt, on top of the $30000 of student loan debt. And for all that money, I didn’t even go anywhere exciting. Never more than 6 hours from school.
Speaking of travel, your Bangkok trip cost a lot more than the plane ticket. You bought food while you were there, maybe some souvenirs. And you had to get a passport at some point.
I can’t account for your personal credit card debt. Not everyone can have a great experience in college, but I sure have following these rules.
And in Bangkok, you can buy a meal for under $3.00 every time. I was there right before Christmas and managed to do all of my Christmas shopping for under $100.
Thanks for the comment, but obviously everyone has different experiences. Sorry yours didn’t work out.
Well Edward, obviously the businesses you started were not very successful considering the amound of debt you amassed – huh? One was even passive income? Really? Wow … impressive.
They were moderately successful to abject failures. The passive income one did consistently make me $50/month for as long as I was on campus. My system builder business closed down with a $2000 loss over the 7 years I tried.
Two things conspired against me to pile up that debt. First was that when I lost my scholarship, I wound up with a $3,500 whole in tuition funding – paychecks went to paying tutition, and things that I wound have otherwise paid from wages, I bought on credit.
The other was that, until I started getting in over my head with debt (and realized it), I just bought massive amounts of stuff I really didn’t need. I bought a $200 Lan-Li computer case when the company first debuted in the US. And I blew a couple grand on porn, before getting that under control.
The moral of the story is that fiscal discipline is still a cornerstone to success of any kind.
I like everything except the part where you recommended establishing yourself as a twitter “guru”. NOOOOOO. the last thing we (more accurately, I) want is more self proclaimed twitter, internet marketing, and social media gurus. It doesn’t make me think you’re more credible, it makes me hit the unfollow button.
Mehul,
I completely agree that the market is over-saturated with self-proclaimed Twitter gurus. It’s almost a trade-off: on one hand you get instant recognition and on the other it can be annoying for those established in the business.
The point that I was trying to make was that it is possible to earn a passive income in college and that’s one avenue.
Excellent post Rob! These tips are handy to any college student. I hope more of my peers start to open their eyes and notice the opportunities out there. I personally “hacked” my last semester of college. I graduate in May and I only go to class wednesday nights, I have 13 units (credit hours), and I’m still maintaining an above average GPA. Its been my best semester yet 🙂
Rob,
Excellent article! I love how all of your tips flow well. Personal branding is something I’m working on now and these are great tips to work by.
Excellent article! In a world where we’re taught to go to college just like everyone else, going beyond the standard experience really sets you apart.
Hopefully we see more from Rob!
good article rob! im impressed!! Im actually going to try to work on social branding for myself and pass along this article to friends who need to do the same things i need to. Keep writing:)
Thanks for all of the positive comments! What am I leaving out? What ways have all of you combined the Untemplate lifestyle with college or work?
Having traveled to several continents across the world before I entered country, I can only imagine the learning experience of spending months or even weeks at a time in a foreign country. I hope to travel to China or Japan for my time abroad. Good article
Too bad I didn’t have this list before I was a senior, haha.
For me, though, it isn’t possible to do all of this… Mostly because I’m already married, and to a military guy at that. I’m untemplating college by finishing my final year online, while living out-of-state.
I have applied for a trip this summer to Germany, hoping to get that… Would be awesome, plus it’s on entrepreneurship. 😉 (And would be the highlight of my college career, easy!)
College can be the classic example of the templater lifestyle, or it can be an amazing testing ground for untemplating.
Try stacking your classes into the same days. I only had Friday classes one semester. During my last two semesters I had classes M-W one semester and only T/Th the second. Four day weekend every week–with a day off in the middle!
Also, take adventure of campus jobs… No, not at the bookstore. Look for jobs at the TV station, radio station, or newspaper. These can be excellent ways to begin building your brand, become your own practice field, and provide opportunities for networking. Also consider working with a professor which will help establish you as an expert.
Great article man, all strategies listed are great ways to maximize your college experience
All is good, just don’t forget to get straight “A’s” while you’re having fun untemplating in college! Your career and retirement will definitely thank you for it in the future!
Best,
Sam
Good points. Another great advantage of traveling while in school is all the discounts! Things like air tickets through STA travel and euro rail passes are all great ways to travel for less than the average person. Also, if you go abroad make sure you bring your id as it is accepted at many museums and other places for discount tickets as well!
I did some traveling during school (2 month backpacking trip) but after I graduated I did some open-ended backpacking for awhile. A few months in I realized I was learning way more while traveling then I ever did at school!
Another way to “untemplate” college is to take a semester off to travel, rather than study abroad through your university. Many schools require that you pay full tuition in order to transfer credits earned abroad. This generally means a really expensive travel experience.
Why not use your AP credits from high school, take a couple extra classes to meet your graduation requirement, and then just take off on your own for a semester? It’s way cheaper than studying abroad (unless you hustle and get one of the deals that Josh mentions), and you’ll truly be experiencing the foreign place, rather than hanging out with a bunch of other Americans who are also studying abroad (at least, this is what my friends tell me it’s like).
I took a year off to travel on my own, and then spent four solid years at my school. It was the best decision for me–I maximized my college experience, and separately maximized my travel experience.
If you can get away with it, why not?
A cool way to travel for free or very cheaply is to have your university pay for it. Universities allocate thousands of dollars for professional development of its students and will send students across the world for conferences and competitions. I am currently a 3rd year finance student at a large public university, and in the past few years, I’ve traveled to the following places with the costs covered by my university:
– Austin, TX (Conference)
– Philadelphia, PA (Conference)
– Washington, DC (Business Case Competition)
– Hong Kong (Business Case Competition)
– Amsterdam/Maastricht, Netherlands (Business Case Competition – heading there this Friday!)
I am also currently studying abroad as well in Madrid funded solely through scholarships from my university and money saved up for summer internships. Living the Untemplater College Experience is entirely possible if you are willing to hustle, build relationships, and get creative!