High School Senior Looking For Financial Advice

[tunamonster112]

Hello, I'll be graduating high school in 2025 and going to a local university with a full-ride scholarship to pursue an engineering degree. I currently have about $8000 saved up and was curious what would be the best way to save up more money. I used to be a big spender a few years back but since then I have matured a lot more and have begun saving my money. I currently don't have a job and am curious about what jobs to get so I can save more money. Should I get a job right now or wait until I graduate since many of the higher-paying jobs require a high school degree? I'm also hoping to be able to work 15-20hrs a week during college but I'm unsure if that will be possible due to pursuing an engineering degree. So, are there any jobs which I can apply for that pay $15+? I'm hoping to be able to get to at least 60-70k at the end of college.

I currently have my money in HYSA, but I have recently set up a fidelity investment account and was thinking of dumping it all into the S&P 500 or money market. I'm not very educated on the topic of investing but what are the general investments you guys would make with $8000?

[Tasse]

The first thing we need to understand is if you need any of that $8k to support yourself, or if your expenses are basically covered.

1. Does your scholarship cover tuition only, or also room and board?

2. What is your living situation going to be like in college? Will you be living with your parents? In a dorm? An apartment? Who is responsible for paying your living expenses? Will you have a meal plan? How will you pay if you want to go out to eat with friends?

3. Do you have to make certain grades in order to keep your full-ride scholarship? That scholarship is likely worth a lot more than you can make at a campus job. I support you earning money, but make sure to keep your priorities in order and put your education first. My college had limits on the number of hours you could work for this reason.

3.1. Over the summer, you can probably work full time (unless also taking summer classes).

3.2. A job that gets you relevant experience is more valuable to you at this point than a job that pays more.

3.3. If your scholarship does not cover room and board, consider becoming an RA after your first year. The paycheck is terrible but at most schools it comes with free housing, which is worth more than any other job can make you.

4. On investing: keep an emergency fund in your HYSA. For most people this is 3-6 months of expenses, but that might be hard for you to calculate at this point if your expenses are quite low. I would keep a MINIMUM of $1000. You might need more if your circumstances put you at higher risk of a financial emergency, for example if you have a car you pay for yourself.

If you are new to the idea of investing, stocks and bonds, etc, start learning here: https://jlcollinsnh.com/stock-series/

After that: you didn't say what kind of Fidelity account you opened, so I'm guessing it's a normal brokerage account. You also don't say how you got $8000, but you don't have a job, so I'm inferring this is mostly gifts (???).

A great option for you to consider is opening a Roth IRA, which you can easily do online at Fidelity. There is an annual limit to contributing to an IRA, currently $7000. Plus, there is a catch that you have to have earned income greater than the amount you put in the IRA. So, if you didn't earn your $8000 at a job, you can't use this option yet. Once you get a job, this should be the first place you invest money. If you leave your savings in a Roth IRA until retirement age, you will not have to pay any taxes on it, even though it will have grown a LOT. You can also take money back out of a Roth IRA if you need to, but there are some rules around this--avoid it if you can.

If you max out your IRA, and/or if you have savings to invest that are not earned income, then go back to your brokerage account. You can invest in the same funds in your IRA and your brokerage account.

When I first started out, I invested in Target Date Funds. These automatically adjust your risk tolerance as you get older, so it's a good option if you are nervous about investing and don't want to have to learn the details. They do cost a little more in investment growth and sometimes in taxes. This is probably the one you would consider: https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/summary/31579B556

*Note: Fidelity's target date funds are called "Fidelity Freedom" funds. There is a "Fidelity Freedom 2070" and a "Fidelity Freedom Index 2070." You want the Index one.

Now that I know what I'm doing a little more, I've stopped investing in Target Date funds and I invest directly in this Fidelity Total Market Index Fund: https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/summary/31635T708 This costs less than Target Date Funds, and it's a good option if you are willing to put all your money in stocks. Eventually you'll need to decide what your risk tolerance is and possibly learn how to rebalance, but at your age it is not a bad idea to be 100% in stocks.

Edit to correct a detail about the second fund I suggested (it's the same one the next poster recommends).

[lhamo]

Suggestion:

Rather than focusing on how much money you can earn with extra work while in school, consider trying to get your foot in the door with a research assistant position working for one (or more) of the professors at your university.  My son followed this route in computer science.  He first volunteered for a couple of years and established good relationships.  In his senior year they started paying for him.  The professors and grad students he worked with had founded a startup, and he went to work with them after graduation -- started as an intern (but with a 70-80k salary) and then they bumped him up to a regular position/120k salary after a few months to convince him to defer grad school and stay an extra year. 

If your school has a co-op program, that is another way to earn more money doing work in your field and gaining extra experience rather than just working whatever job you can get.  If your school doesn't have a formal program, consider talking with advisors to see if you can create something similar yourself. 

It may not be obvious at the time, but working for lower pay in a field related to your major/desired profession is probably going to benefit you more long term than taking a slightly higher paying job in some unrelated field.  Ideally your course work and your employment history during college tell a coherent story about who you are/what you are aiming for.  Better to take $12/hour (or even $0/hour) working in a lab related to work you really want to do than to spend 15 hours/week at $15/hour working retail or fast food.

As for investing, consider opening a Roth account if you don't have one already.  You can always withdraw your contributions if you need them (and it can therefore serve as a backup emergency fund).  And the money will grow tax free over time for your future.

YMMV but I have had really good returns with Fidelity's no-fee total stock market index (FZROX)

[lucenzo11]

Usually schools will have some kind of job board that lists jobs for those needing work study and non work study jobs. You can try googling your school name and "student job" and see if it comes up although some schools will keep this job board locked to non students and you won't be able to access it until you enroll. These will typically have a wide range of incredibly boring or non applicable jobs to your future. However, they are usually really flexible and could be as little as four hours a week. I would think finding something flexible to start your freshman year might be beneficial so that you can get a feeling of how much time you need to dedicate to your studies and then work to balance things out. Sometimes these jobs are even so minimal that you can study/do homework while doing the job.

Also would be good to try talking to the engineering department directly and seeing if they have any jobs within the department that would be more applicable to your future.

In the spring semester of your freshman year, you want to start looking for internships for the summer. Your school may even have a career fair that you can go to (includes internships) These will be full time or close to full time internships that will give you really good experience towards a full time job after graduating college. It can be a bit of luck to get an internship as a freshman because you have nothing to really show other than your class work, but it you do get one, it's going to set you up very nicely. Some companies will even let you stay on and work part time remote when you are back at school. The company I used to work at did that for some interns and it seemed like a good gig for them.

All else fails, go find a minimum wage job literally anywhere just to keep some money coming in.

[Laura33]

First, congratulations!  A full-ride in engineering is an achievement.  You should be proud of yourself.

Second:  we really need to understand what you need the $8K for, what expenses you will have now and through college, and why you want to have $50-60K put away by the time you graduate college.  Don't get me wrong, I adore savings and am thrilled to see someone your age focused on earning and saving instead of blowing the money on stuff you don't need.  But you also don't want to be penny-wise, pound-foolish.  Most specifically, if you do not have an immediate need for the money, you should prioritize those jobs/opportunities that will help you long-term over those that might be higher-pay in the short-term.   

As background, I have one kid who has graduated with an engineering degree, and a second who is a freshman engineering major this fall.  So I have some pretty recent experience.  So, with all that in mind:

You will not be surprised to hear that engineering is a hard degree.  Some people transition from HS to college easily, other people struggle (and it's often the smart kids who struggle, because they're the ones who've been able to skate through HS without actually having to learn how to study, and the time required to manage the college workload is a shock to the system -- we have several examples of that in my own family).  So your first priority for your freshman year is your classwork.  Your best investment right now is in yourself -- in getting yourself that knowledge and experience to make you very valuable when you graduate.  So if you can afford not to work your freshman year, that puts you in the best position to make that adjustment.  If possible, at least wait until the spring to let yourself settle in.

When you are ready to look for a job of some sort, if you can afford it, look for opportunities with professors, like research assistant or lab assistant.  Those may or may not be paid, which is why I started with "if you can afford it."  But those will help you both gain useful experience and start to make connections with people who can help develop your career -- not to mention that you may find some research area you get really excited about (or decide you hate, which is also useful knowledge at this point in your career).

Next, definitely hustle for summer internships.  Whether you need money to cover your current needs or simply want to earn money to save, a summer internship is the easiest way to do so without potentially interfering with your classwork.  I do want to correct one earlier note:  companies start hiring for internships in August, not the following spring.  My DS was told to submit a resume to the career office before he even landed on campus, so they could help him get it in shape to send out!  And they already had their career fair, too!   FWIW, his two preferred internships have deadlines of 1/1 and 1/4 -- and those are the latest dates for the ones he's looked at.

No matter what, I would encourage you to back off your plan to work 15-20 hrs/week unless you actually need the money to cover your current expenses.  This goes back to point 1:  your most valuable investment right now is in yourself.  You will benefit far more in the long-term from nailing your classes and working in the lab than you will get from working 20 hrs/week at the Circle K.  As one comparison:  when I was on work-study, they capped my hours at something like 10-12 hrs/week, because they thought that was the max that could reasonably be done without interfering with studies -- and I was a humanities major!  Obviously, if you need the cash, you bust your hump to earn the cash.  But if you do not actually need it, make sure you are doing everything you need to maximize your engineering-specific class-and-internship obligations/opportunities first. 

Really, even with a full scholarship, if you can graduate a year early, that gives you another year to earn an engineering salary, which is far more valuable than working a part-time minimum-wage job through college.  So even if you do have extra time, it may be more valuable to use that time to take more classes than to work a low-paid job (assuming your scholarship allows it).

Note:  I think your $8K can go a long way in this regard.  If you do not actually need it to cover room and board, that can be a nice pile of cash to cover incidental expenses -- certainly at least for your freshman year, while you're figuring out how much of your time your classwork will take. 

So in terms of timing things out, this is what I'd recommend:

Now:  get a part-time job, work as much as you can to save as much as you can until you go to college.  You've been admitted and earned a scholarship; you can't let your grades drop to the point that they yank those offers, but you also don't need to worry quite so much about haivng a perfect GPA.  Now is when you can afford that 15-20 hrs/week.

When you arrive on-campus:  don't bother to try to get an immediate job unless you really need one to cover room and board and necessities.  Get your resume in order, go to the career center, start looking for summer internships. 

Spring semester:  assess how the fall went.  See if you feel like you have the time to take on some sort of job without affecting your studies.  If so, look for some sort of work with your professors.  If you can't find something, volunteer for clubs/facilities that are related to your career (my DD volunteered at the campus maker space and ended up working there all 4 years).  If you don't yet have a summer internship, double down on your efforts to find one; if you can't get one, look for the best summer job you can find.

Summer:  Bust your ass at your internship/job.

Sophomore fall:  this is when you can look for an on-campus job in earnest, if you haven't found one in the spring.  Be careful, though:  sometimes sophomore year can be the weed-out year, where you start running into hard classes that are well beyond what you dealt with in HS.  Each school is going to be different, and each weed-out class will be different, so pay attention to the campus scuttlebut.  Protect the time you need to do your schoolwork above all else.

If you find yourself really needing money, look for co-op opportunities.  It would likely take longer to graduate, but again, better to take a semester off to work full-time than to spread yourself too thin and lose your scolarship.  Also note that there may be study-abroad opportunities that allow you to earn money -- one of the programs at my kid's college is study abroad fall semester, then do a paid internship with a company in the same city in the spring.   

The tl;dr from the economic perspective is that right now, you are the least valuable to an employer that you will ever be.  Every year, every class, you will know more, and thus become more valuable.  Therefore, economically it makes the most sense to focus your efforts into maximizing your learning, so you can maximize your future value (and thus overall earnings).  All of us have only so much time and energy; the way to succeed long-term is to focus your efforts on those things that will provide the greatest long-term benefit, whenever and wherever you can afford to do so.   

Good luck, and do post more questions as you have them.  You're on a great path.

[BNgarden]

First, congratulations!  A full-ride in engineering is an achievement.  You should be proud of yourself.
...
Some people transition from HS to college easily, other people struggle (and it's often the smart kids who struggle, because they're the ones who've been able to skate through HS without actually having to learn how to study, [emphasis added] and the time required to manage the college workload is a shock to the system -- we have several examples of that in my own family).  ...

Laura33 responses are gold.  You are fortunate to have her input.

One other thing I struggled to do, besides the note bolded above, was to work effectively in a group to manage the workload and complete assignments well.  I had always completed all work on my own and disdained group work.  This did not serve me.

Additionally, I ran into a wall on multi-dimensional math, and to that point I hadn't realized I was relying on visualizing functions.   I was also better at the 'how' of engineering, rather than the 'why'.  I preferred estimating classes, or cranking pressure calculations, to anything more theoretical.

Pay attention to 'how' you're struggling (if you do) and get specific help (tutoring / online videos from reputable sources, etc.) to gain skills or perspective--this could also be a good use for any saved funds, to put you in a position to grow faster and learn 'better'.

Read at least one engineering journal article per month outside your assignments, in an area of interest.

Assign yourself learning how to deal with humans as well.  The more successful in any field are often well-rounded, and show an interest in and support the individuals with whom they're working / volunteering.

All the best for your future and your studies.

[obstinate]

I think at this particular moment, you should not be too too worried about saving money and such. I mean, you should be conservative, because you have limited resources. What that means is pretty obvious -- minimize dining out, learn to cook for yourself, live with roommates if you have the option. Drive a cheap, fuel efficient, used car, and do any work on it yourself. Buy things used if at all possible. Stay off the hedonic treadmill.

That being said, your main focus should be learning things that other people are willing to pay money for, and it sounds like you're on the right track there. Study hard, because while college may seem difficult it is actually the easiest job you'll likely have for the rest of your adult life. Absolutely do not sacrifice your academic performance for work outside of school unless you literally cannot get by any other way. I would even encourage borrowing (the minimum required) to fund your education if need be. The debt can easily be paid back on an engineering salary, within a year or two if you keep living the college lifestyle after you graduate.

You should also be working on your social life. Meet good people and invest your time with them. Avoid tiktok and YouTube. Be outside, with people. The folks you meet in college can become lifelong friends.

If you manage to find a likeminded mate in college it can be a huge leg up on the future as well. Not that you should put pressure on that necessarily but many of the happily married couples I know now met in college, myself included.

[Freedomin5]

You’ve got some amazingly detailed advice from some very successful people. Follow their advice carefully. I don’t have much to add, except to say that if you can find an summer internship, consider doing your internship at the same company over a few summers, especially if it’s one of the Fortune 500s. Many of my computer science and engineering friends turned their internships into full-time job offers. The companies made the full-time offer the summer before they started their final year of college. It’s an amazing feeling knowing that you have a guaranteed job upon graduation.

For myself, I turned my summer internship at a Fortune 500 into part-time work throughout the school year. My manager kept me on and provided me with a laptop so I could continue working part-time from home while in university. The pay was terrible, but the title of “Analyst at Fortune 500 Company” looked really good on my CV.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

I can't add much to what was said if anything, so I'll just try to summarize.

If you don't need money to survive on top of the full ride, your 8k along with money you make in odd jobs, menial university jobs, etc. is virtually meaningless. It doesn't help you pursue a serious job, and the amount earned is paltry compared to what you will make. If in doing those jobs, you hurt your academics, they're worse than meaningless. They're extremely bad for you.

Thankfully, engineering generally allows for internships and co-ops during the summer or coordinated around your classes. You can make much more significant money in those than any odd job and seriously build your resume. I certainly got my first job (even though it wasn't with any of the places I interned at) in no small part due to my internships. I was also able to save a good amount of money that came in useful early in life. Again, unless you literally need money during the school year to eat, pay for books, etc. IMO, all of your energy needs to be focused on academics and pursuing engineering related jobs during the summer or through co-ops or the like.

[Laura33]

You should also be working on your social life. Meet good people and invest your time with them. Avoid tiktok and YouTube. Be outside, with people. The folks you meet in college can become lifelong friends.

I want to expand on this:  building relationships is not just about having a good social life (although having a solid circle of friends should be top priority).  It is also the beginning stages of networking.

My DH is an engineer, and literally every job he's had has come from people he knew.  I distinctly remember when his company shut down mid-tech-crash, and I was 8 months pregnant:  the first thing he did was send out emails to all his friends, former coworkers, former professors, etc., asking if they new of any openings.  Because, of course, all those people were in the same general field, so instead of just his own two ears, he had like 100 ears listening for him.  And sure enough, a former coworker knew someone at another company who was hiring, and he put in a good word for my DH based on their past experience working together, and before his current employer had even closed its doors, he had a new job.

The thing is, it was all genuine.  DH has never been a player, he never tried to schmooze his way into knowing powerful people; he was just a good student, a good coworker, and a good friend.  He was someone those professors/coworkers/friends knew they could count on.  And so when he needed help, those same professors/coworkers/friends were more than happy to help him out -- and they could tell those possible future employers great stories about the kind of guy DH was from their own experience.

[patchyfacialhair]

I've posted this before, but the key thing here is to get an internship/research job in your desired industry as soon as possible. That is more valuable than money.

When I was in college, I worked a regular sales type job because I had to 1) pay for school and 2) pay for my living expenses. That meant I couldn't take internships in my field, and here I am 12+ years since graduation and I work in an industry that I neither care about, nor did I study for. Made college feel like a waste.

[Tasse]

As a flip side to that example, my husband got a campus job and participated in extracurriculars related to his computer science minor and ended up with a job offer from a major software company upon graduation, even though that wasn't his major. Despite graduating with lots of debt, that start is a big reason we are nearly FI 10 years later.