Some of us are looking for ways to earn money so that we can start paying of our student loans, university fees, or we simply want to earn extra money so that we can finance a certain lifestyle or start our saving or investing journey, either way because you are looking you are on the right track. Its always good to have more than one stream of income flowing your direction so below are the top 5 things that you can try out to make money whilst balancing your academics and university life in general.
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1. Tutoring Online
If you’ve been bagging good grades you can ask your lecturers if tutoring positions are available for the courses you are acing, just prepare a good reason as to why you’d make a good tutor. Otherwise, you can also tutor English online on platforms like Camby, iTalki and Preply which allow you to teach English to people from around the world who are looking to learn how to speak the English language. Some of these platforms will require you to have a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certificate, others may require you to have a degree. To obtain a TEFL certificate for free you can check out Teacher Record and complete the modules and tests. You can also opt to tutor secondary school subjects on a platform like Teach me 2. Apart from making money the great thing about tutoring especially to foreign nationals is that you get to grow as a person, learn a few things about other people’s backgrounds and its a fun way to develop the way you interact with other people or simply your communication and social skills.
2. Creating Content
A lot of us love our socials, and it makes sense to therefore leverage on what they have to offer. You don’t need to have a very high social media following to get started. Hop onto TikTok, catch some trends, create the content, grow your fanbase and reach out to brands, do the same for Instagram or Facebook and Twitter which is now reffered to X or follow the route of becoming a youtuber, and just a side note you no longer required to reach 4000 watch hours on YouTube in 6 months but rather in a year which gives us enough time to try and monetize our ‘day in the life of a university student’ content. YouTube pays, depending on the kind of content you are creating, the number of subscribers you have and the watch time, it certainly pays. The advice I have with regards to this is to be yourself, be authentic.
Content creation can also include blogging or content writing, you can write about absolutely anything of your interest. If you love fashion and are creating your own clothing, blog and monetize, if you have a passion for technology, blog and monetize, if you are dog or cat lover blog and monetize. Keep in mind that content creation is a process and if you are just starting now then it will take some time before you start seeing the coins unless if you already have an existing and organic fanbase or you boom overnight then it may take much less time for you. Either way, put yourself out there and have fun with it.
3. Sell your pre-owned items
Selling things that you already have is so much easier than taking out your cash and buying inventory that you are not sure whether its going to sell or not. Go through your closet, maybe there are some clothing items or shoes that no longer fit or maybe you simply won’t like or see a need for them anymore. Put some of those items together and take some pictures of them, create a Yaga or eBay account depending on your location, upload the snaps, add your prices, market your store on your socials and sell away. If you are for example a wig influencer receiving free hair you have the opportunity to start a wig or hair business. Money, money, money. Otherwise, if you don’t have any items you can consider thrifting. Thrift clothes, clean them, style and resell them. With thrifting you can get an outfit for R250 and sell that for R400. It’s still ka Ching right.
4. Testing websites and mobile applications:
There must have been a time when you browsed a website and became frustrated because you couldn’t find for example, a button to get you back to the home page or when you were ordering some products and the quantities in your shopping cart weren’t adding up and this probably decreased the chances of you visiting that website or using that mobile app again. This is what the owners of websites want to prevent. Which is where you come in. You can get paid for testing a website and sharing your experience or opinion about the way things are layed out on the website, the functionalities and what you may have expected. A tests duration can range between five to thirty minutes, and you can get paid $4 to $30 depending on the platform you are using. Before you start you will be required to do a practice test like in the case of UserTesting. Other platforms that you can check out include: TryMyUi and Testerwork.
8. Freelancing
As a student, freelancing gives you the opportunity to be somewhat self-employed, to use your skills to deliver relevant services to clients from all around the world and earn money doing something that is of interest to you. Some of the work that you can do includes content writing such as writing blog posts, editing videos, web development, designing logos, doing voice overs, photography and even writing resumes and cover letters for other people.
There are many other services that you can offer as a freelancer and Fiverr is one of the freelancing platforms you should check out. There is also Upwork and Freelancer. Before you start its recommended that you do a demo project for the kind of service you want to offer so that you can add it to your profile to promote yourself to your potential clients. Make sure you set a competitive price for each of the services you offer and also let the customers know how long it may take you to deliver. Freelancing is also a great way to build your portfolio with which you can showcase your experience when applying for more permanent job opportunities or graduate programs.
Conclusion
As students one goal that many of us have in common is the desire to make some extra cash. There are various options that you can explore to secure the bag such as tutoring English or high school subjects online, becoming a content creator or influencer, starting a business of buying and reselling or looking through your closet and selling some preowned items, to freelancing and putting your skills into practice. Before choosing which path you want to explore start by considering your interests, your schedule and your skills to see if you can actually commit yourself, your time and effort to make the chosen method of earning money work in your favor and then start, don’t second guess yourself just give it your best shot.
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