If you have the need (maybe to finance your studies or take care of other responsibilities), and the passion/drive, to make money while studying there are some smart and legit ways of achieving this. All you need is to manage your time well so that the money-making ventures do not affect your study.
Check some of them out below:
Take a survey for cash
Taking surveys for cash is one of the smartest ways to rake in extra cash for you and also get a chance to contribute to the world’s body of knowledge. There are many websites that will pay you to take surveys. Some of the websites are Swagbucks, Toluna, Valued Opinions, YouGov, Vivatic, MySurvey, and so on.
Test websites for money
You can also help test websites to make money. Isn’t that cool? There are companies that pay you to test websites for them. All you need to do is to spend a few hours surfing the websites, and then take a survey reviewing your experience on it. Some of these websites are UserTesting, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Enroll, Analysia, and so on.
Take and sell stock photos
The emergence of smartphone technology has turned almost everyone to photographers. So, apart from taking photos for social media use, you can take photos to make money now. There are two ways to do this: you can register on some photography websites that allow you to upload your photos for people to download. You get paid each time your photos are downloaded. Another way to do is to ‘photoblog’; you create a blog where you upload the pictures and sell to interested clients. Some websites you can upload photos to get paid are Fotolia, iStockPhoto, Shutterstock, etc.
Sell used textbooks
If you really have the pressing need to get some cash, probably to pay tuition fees or buy new course materials, you can opt to resell your old textbooks. You can try reselling on your own, sell through local bookstores or use major online stores like Amazon, eBay, Powells, BookScouter, etc.
Volunteer for research
You can also make money by volunteering for research projects. Many universities, research organizations and other corporate bodies usually recruit volunteers to take part in studies and offer money as a reward. You can check universities’ and research organizations’ websites for volunteering opportunities.
Write and sell eBooks
The days are gone when you strictly needed a publisher before you can publish anything. Nowadays, digital publishing has broken that barrier. And you don’t even need to write voluminous books. Small books or pamphlets will fetch you money as long as they are resourceful and well written. Some e-books publishing platforms are OkadaBooks, MyeBook, Blurb, MyBuuk, and so on.
Enter academic/essay competitions
This is another pretty cool way of getting extra cash—plus it also improves your writing skill and boosts your CV. You can check websites that regularly post essay contests and scholarly competitions which offer cash prizes and other benefits for the winners, e.g. penprofile.com, opportunitiesforafricans.com, commonwealthwriters.org, etc.
Become a tutor
You can also make use of your knowledge of your course of study to fetch some cash by doing part-time tutoring. Websites such as Tuteria provides a good platform to connect you with students to tutor.
Create and monetize YouTube channel
If you have video shooting skills, you can also use the skill to make money. Fortunately, you don’t necessarily need an expensive digital camera to do this; you can use your smartphone to record high definition videos. All you need to do is to create a YouTube channel where you upload the videos and monetize the channel by signing up for Google AdSense.