Ask HN: Should I go full time in my main job?

Thirty years ago, freelancing probably involved more face to face interaction than it does today just because how 300 baud shaped the world of 1987...it was well into the 1990's before the turn-on-your-modem-and-even-or-odd-parity phone conversation became less necessary.

Thirty years ago working on open source projects (an alternative to full time employment proposed in the question) probably meant being part of a small cutting edge community working on something important. Today, the median open source project is one one person repository on Github.

I've also done a lot of freelancing and consulting over the past 25 years. I'd be better at it if I was better at networking because that's much of what consulting is and it suits personalities that are inclined to enjoy networking or feel its importance more than personalities that are not so inclined. It might have been useful to me had someone pointed that out when I was young...though might not have listened.

Anyway, some people consider a zero hour contract with maybe six hours of work per day to be perfect. After 25 years consulting/freelancing/contracting I prefer a big retainer check that has cleared the bank. YMMV.

Cool projects make it easy to attract students. Hiring a new student increases the odds of finding someone who will go full time after graduation.

Again, this is random advice from the internet. To me, the most important piece of it is to expand your professional network, learn new things, and get business experience.