When Wheaton students seek a way to make some money during the school year, there are a plethora of on-campus options. They can work as snow and grounds crew members, maybe, or as TAs for their favorite professors. They can man the front desk of Chrouser Sports Complex all day, or Fischer Hall all night.
This year, there are 1,138 student employees at the college between grads and undergrads, not including many students who find work off campus. But a handful of others looked first to their own creativity before logging on to Handshake.
Clare Beck is one student who breaks the mold in this regard. Beck, a junior elementary education major with an art minor, decided to turn her hobby of embroidery into a business. She began embroidering by hand in 2020, pouring herself into each project and taking hours to stitch every part.
“It’s like my child once I’ve put that much time into it,” Beck joked.
As her friends and family noticed her embroidery abilities, they began asking her for personalized pieces. But it takes so many hours to make a piece that she told them their requests would be impossible. Instead of quitting, though, she took a leap and bought an embroidery machine. Now, she could focus more on the design without the burden of hours spent hand stitching.
Her sister, Hannah Chong ’22, suggested combining her own clay earring business with Beck’s embroidery after Beck’s initial struggle to launch her first time on Etsy, when she only had a few online orders. The second time around, business proved more successful. Last November, Beck participated in SASS (Student Art, Student Sound), College Union’s art fair in Lower Beamer, with a gaggle of students gathered around her table, eager to buy her limited supply of embroidered tote bags and sweatshirts. One of her crowd-pleasing items is a mastodon icon, an expression of cutesy school spirit in homage to Wheaton’s mascot, Tor the mastodon.
“I had one guy when he saw me setting up my booth, he told me, ‘No way, I was just looking at this on Etsy for a gift for my mom,’” Beck said.
Running a small business in college has required a balance of her time. She said she often finds herself working on homework while running the machine.
“It’s different with Etsy because it is real people and a lot of people are working out of their homes,” said Beck. “Sometimes I want to tell people, ‘I’m just a college student. I’m trying my best.’ But most people are really kind and I’ve gotten a lot of sweet messages and reviews of people that have liked the products. It’s overwhelmingly positive.”
In a search for the same balance as a senior facing the end of college life, Carsten Castaneda decided to have the best of both worlds in creating his own side hustle while also being able to appreciate his last moments at Wheaton. Castaneda, international relations major, spends a few days a week hitting up thrift stores and then reselling clothes on apps like Depop and Ebay.
Some of his friends suggested selling some of his clothes on Depop after cleaning out his closet. From there he began using one of his favorite pastimes — thrifting — to acquire clothes to be resold. Typically, they will dedicate a day or two a week for thrift shopping.
“It’s fun to thrift and to think of it more as a communal activity, going with friends,” he said.
Working minimum wage jobs in college demands a certain amount of time and effort that can often be out of your control. By using apps like Depop and Ebay to sell, Castaneda is able to use his own creative freedom to choose the time and effort he puts into his side job.
“I am not going to be rich or even be able to really support myself from this, but my favorite part is that it’s just enough money while I’m in college so that I can be free on weekends,” Castaneda said. “I’m about to graduate and working is great, but working a minimum wage job every Friday and Saturday night, that’s not really how I want to spend my last couple of months of college.”
