Working as a student

Iva Juka, Copy Editor

As someone who has worked throughout all of college, I am able to state that time management is essential. Since freshman year, I’ve been balancing school, work, internships and a social life. At first it was difficult, but as time passed I learned to balance everything and prioritize what was important to me.

At one point, I was maintaining three jobs while continuing as a full time student. To me, having a job is beneficial throughout college because it’ll teach you how to be more independent. I personally do not enjoy asking my parents for money every time I want to go out with my friends, or want to grab something to eat. They already pay for my school and all the other important things, so asking them for money to do things such as simply have “fun” just does not seem right to me.

I started working at the age of 16 and held the same job until I was twenty years old. Throughout those years, I picked up side jobs as a Wedding Expo, teaching assistant, server, etc. It is not easy, so I understand why students do not work throughout college. A lot of students have other priorities like sports. Personally, if I played a sport in college, I do not think I’d have a job either because it is too much on someone’s plate. However, that is not the case for me so I was able to maintain jobs.

I recently changed my hours at my current job so I am only working the weekends because working the week days became too overwhelming. Though, I have been getting more familiar with my time for this semester so I am looking to changing my work schedule once again to pick up more shifts. As a senior, we have a lot of responsibilities and a lot of events to look forward to such as senior week and spring break (as well as leits every Thursday) so as one could imagine, money is needed.

I would always recommend for students to try to maintain a job during college, especially because it looks good on one’s resume as well. If I could change anything from these past few years as a working student, I would try to change my class schedule to fit my work schedule better. It sometime aggravates me that I cannot work certain shifts because my classes are too long or start too early, but at the end of the day, school is my number one priority.