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I had to work in//as // for part-time while I was studying in the university.

Which preposition should I use in sentence above? Should I say “ work in part-time” or “work as part-time”or “work for part-time” ?I try to understand how “ part time is used as an adverb?

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You use part-time as the adverb:

  • I had to work part-time while I was studying at the university

At least in the UK, we are usually at university.

For this sentence it would be ungrammatical to add "in/as/for". There are similar sentences which have them:

  • I was in part-time work while ...
  • I worked as a part-time waiter while ...
  • I had to work for part of the time while ...
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  • My first thought was your second "similar" example lacks an article. It was only when I was contemplating editing it in (I worked as a part-time waiter) that I realised it was at least "credible" without the article. It's a bit unlikely though - adjectival "part-time" is syntactically irrelevant, and few people would say He worked as waiter at McDonalds over Christmas. – FumbleFingers Jan 9 '20 at 15:53
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    @FumbleFingersReinstateMonica thanks, it was a typo, I'd meant "a part-time waiter" which is I agree the more usual phrase. – jonathanjo Jan 9 '20 at 16:58
  • Haha. You and I might both know perfectly well that both versions are possible - but we also know that one is far more likely than the other. Which some ELL users might not realise, so it was a good idea to make that edit, to avoid encouraging anyone to think the less common version might be "equally" valid / natural. I say that specifically because some users might not use articles like this in their own language, so they could be particularly likely to see, remember, and erroneously reproduce the article-less form, if that matches the way their own language works. – FumbleFingers Jan 9 '20 at 17:15

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