At the present stage of all industry spheres development, the service sector is a leader, because it trains specialists who are directly involved in the development of Ukraine's economy. The efficiency of the enterprise operation and the level of customer service depend on their competence, competitiveness, independence, speed of decision-making. The main task of high school is to teach applicants to work independently, look forward self-improvement, think creatively, be ready for innovation. That is why there is a need to strengthen the role of independent work of students, which is a key in the process of training future professionals capable of performing complex production tasks at a high professional level. The purpose of the article is to analyze the essence of the concepts «independent», «individual», «extracurricular» work, «self-education» and «independence»; characterize common and distinctive features; isolate our own vision of understanding the essence of the studied phenomena. We should note that the terms «independent work», «individual work», «extracurricular work», «self-education» and «independence» researchers have different meanings, because today there are many approaches to defining the essence of these concepts, and as a consequence – many interpretations, but there are not enough researches, which systematically presents the generalized scientific achievements on the essence of the studied concepts, their common and distinctive features. To understand the relationship between independent, individual work and self-education of students, it is necessary to consider the basic approaches to the definition of basic concepts in pedagogical science. The results of the analysis of the essence of independent, individual, extracurricular work, independence and self-education of the individual show that these are complex activities that can be interconnected, coincide at different stages of development or in general. Despite the different approaches to determining the essence of the studied phenomena, their structure contains the same components: subject, object, purpose, content, means, result. The paper presents an analysis of the psychological and pedagogical literature on the interpretation of the concepts being studied; common and distinctive features are singled out; substantiated own vision of the studied phenomena. Key words: independent work, individual work, extracurricular work, self-education, independence.