Investing student loan into something in an effort to avoid working during the school year.

Hey guys.

It's been awhile since I've invested, I have a lot of market research to do. Long story short, I am getting 8-12k for my first half of the year for school as a loan which is a tight budget to cover 6/12 month's and so I am considering putting a majority of my loan into an investment in hopes to see some growth in return. I am not looking for over night growth but I am hoping to stretch my money a bit further.

Any suggestions or starting points? My only experience investing has been short term investing followed by buying out within hour's or day's once I seen a positive investment start to fall again (quickly).