Ethiraj and VIT Chennai Students Turn Hobbies Into Side Businesses

On World Youth Skills Day, college students at Ethiraj College for Women and VIT Chennai are turning their creative hobbies into entrepreneurial side businesses. Local students are balancing demanding academic schedules with self-run ventures to develop financial responsibility, creative skills, and business acumen.

G Vani, a student at Ethiraj College for Women in Chennai, turned her passion for baking into a home bakery brand called @_gv_bakes in 2025. To build her business, Vani joined her college’s entrepreneurship cell, which provided her with marketing lessons and opportunities to set up physical stalls at college events. Despite the challenges of managing orders alongside her classes and navigating a highly competitive home-baking market, she continues to run the business independently.

At VIT Chennai, engineering student Varshini Yogarajan turned to social media to overcome personal insecurities and peer discrimination, launching a content creation platform under the handle @clicksbyvarsh. Yogarajan has since grown her online community to more than 4,000 followers. She reserves her weekdays for engineering classes and spends her weekends filming reels and taking photographs.

This entrepreneurial shift is visible across Tamil Nadu. Sona Sherin J, a student at Bharathiar University in Coimbatore, launched her crochet brand Erinna Loops in January 2026. Sona, who began crocheting at age 14, starts her day at 6 a.m. to check customer orders before attending classes, returning to her crochet work in the evening. Similarly, fashion student Deeksha Rathinasamy launched her own clothing brand, deecloset.in, applying her classroom lessons in styling and business directly to her startup.

Running these ventures comes with distinct operational hurdles. Yogarajan noted that changes in social media algorithms have made search engine optimization (SEO) a major challenge for visibility compared to three years ago. For Sona, early challenges included sourcing quality yarn online, though materials have become more accessible as crocheting grows in popularity.

Despite the difficulties, the student entrepreneurs emphasize that earning an independent income has transformed their outlooks. While Sona and Rathinasamy reinvest their profits directly back into their brands, Yogarajan credits her content creation with teaching her the value of financial responsibility. Their efforts align with this year's World Youth Skills Day theme, 'Skills for a Shared Future,' demonstrating how practical career skills are being forged outside the traditional classroom.