University students are often trying to avoid going broke, with only a handful of options existing to help with funds; usually, that means becoming a waiter or interning. While these can provide a steady stream of income, these part-time jobs for students are often flooded with other university students wanting to earn an income. Therefore, to make lucrative figures, you should consider jobs other university students aren’t pursuing.
9 Decent-Paying Part-Time Jobs for University Students
There are hundreds of options to generate income as a university student. But many of these options will be poorly paying and labour-intensive, making it nearly impossible to earn an income enough to support yourself. These nine high-paying part-time jobs can change that.
Become a Transcriptionist
Online transcribing has made it far easier to write for a few minutes or hours whenever you have a chance and make as much, if not more, than many full-time workers in South Africa. However, before you become a transcriptionist, you need to know where to find transcribing work. The best place to find such work would be Rev.com.
After you’ve passed an initial assessment that tests your typing and English skills, you’ll be able to transcribe for Rev.com. Typically, the company will only send you two minutes of audio at a time to transcribe, meaning you could earn money with just 15-minutes.
Care for the Elderly
If you’re thinking of babysitting, you may find caring or assisting the elderly far more financially and emotionally rewarding. Caring for the elderly can also take on many forms. You can become a part-time carer and emergency contact, or you could lend your help to older people to help with errands. If you decide to run errands for older people, you can multitask and do several clients’ errands at once.
Walk Dogs
You may wonder how walking dogs made its way onto this list as most dog walkers get paid between R15 and R20 for a 30-minute to one-hour walk. The answer is simple: dog walking becomes lucrative because you can walk many dogs at once. If you walk five dogs at R20 each for a 45-minute walk, you’ll earn R200 for a mere 90 minutes of work, netting you R135 an hour. For a job that requires you to work for less than two hours a day and helps you keep active, there’s no better part-time job than walking dogs.
Drive/Deliver for Uber or Bolt
This is a more traditional route to earning income. You can deliver for Uber and Bolt to make some extra cash. Start by finding a neighbourhood where people are constantly taking rides and ordering in – close to campus might work best – and then take rides or orders.
While being an Uber or Bolt driver gets all the credit for earning people big bucks, delivering could be a better choice for a part-time university student job.
You can drive a low petrol consumption vehicle, take several trips at once, and not worry about clients not paying when they arrive at their destination.
Become a Private Driver
If your fellow university friends like to drink and enjoy themselves over the weekends, offer to drive them back to res or their accommodation for a reasonable fee. Being a private driver has far more perks than being an Uber or Bolt driver; as you know, your passengers can offer compet itive rates since Uber and Bolt aren’t taking their cut.
Freelance on Fiverr/Upwork
Fiverr and Upwork make it easy to explore any number of tasks to earn income. This means you can make money from a hobby, something you have experience in, or simply a service that will generate plenty of income. You will also be earning income in dollars while freelancing and getting to set your own hours. However, earning money on either of these platforms is not as simple as creating a profile and can take months before you become established.
Become a Virtual Assistant
Being a virtual assistant is exceptionally labour-intensive; however, it can also be a simple way to make a part-time income working online. Typically, virtual assistants search and respond to emails, take and make calls and data capture. If you do this kind of work on Fiverr or Upwork, you can work in the evenings as a virtual assistant because of the time difference.
Become an Essay Writer
If you consider yourself an academic writer, you could dabble in writing essays for others online. Many of these essay writing services pay you per word and allow you to bid on different jobs to write essays. If you are writing about subject matters you’re familiar with, you may only spend a few minutes or a few hours writing the essay.
Lease Your Beats
How many of your friends fancy themselves to be DJs attending house parties and campus parties on the weekend to earn extra cash? Now, consider that you could make far more money than they do, but without having to party to hop to earn this kind of money. Enter beat leasing. If you can produce a unique beat that you’re okay with others using, you can lease your beat on sites like Airbit.com and Beatstars.com. Every time someone buys the right to use your beat in their song, you’ll make money.
You can lease the same beat to thousands of people without ever being penalized or needing to create another beat.
Summary of Part-Time Jobs For Students
Earning money while you are in university can be simple, especially if you think outside the box. However, when determining what to pursue as your part-time endeavour, you should consider your hourly rate rather than how much you’ll make from the task. Something else you should assess is your schedule to ensure you aren’t overwhelmed. If a part-time job has a high hourly rate and allows you to work around your other commitments, that should most likely become your part-time university job. If a job doesn’t offer this kind of flexibility and income, reconsider your options.
