Students struggle to keep balance

Balancing work and school is a burden many students are faced with year after year. The New York Times published a report in 2009 estimating the amount of debt accumulated by college undergraduates is $24,000. With the cost of college expected to increase, students are looking for other means of income—turning to employment as a necessity.

Christine Davis, who is obtaining a master’s in secondary education, realized early that her standard of living would become her own financial burden after her freshman year of college.

Davis says she was unenthusiastic about the prospect of working to support herself, however, applying for a loan was never an option.

“It would have been a lot easier to go that route, for now at least, but just the thought of all that debt racking up over time is more stressful to me than handling work and school together,” Davis said.

Students who consider employment must learn to balance their school and work lives. Scheduling classes which will not interfere with work is key to making the balance successful. Unfortunately, this can be uniquely difficult for students to achieve, which is why planning your school schedule with a potential job in mind is important.

“I aim to schedule my classes for only two days out of the week so that the rest of my days are entirely open,” said senior psychology major and part-time server at Amici Kayla Tinsley. “If that doesn’t work, then I try to make sure that my classes end by about three so that I’m available to work nights and weekends.”

Phil Kohnen, owner of Barberito’s, agrees that the ability to balance real work with schoolwork is one of the most important factors he considers when hiring students.

“It can be a risk to hire students, who will occasionally decide to miss work in lieu of a final or a project,” Kohnen said. “I prefer hiring those that seem to manage their time well as opposed to a person that seems like a scatter-brain.”

For students who have scheduling issues, finding employment with the college is a better alternative. College jobs are more likely to work around student’s class schedule.

“My employers are really understanding of our class and study schedules and are always careful that we don’t feel overextended,” said Anthony Bennett, senior business major and Georgia College library employee.

Chris Lamphere, coordinator of Outreach and Alcohol and Other Drug education programming in counseling services, says that it is difficult to say how many hours of work a full time student should be able to handle. Lamphere explains briefly that different personality types handle heavy workloads in different ways. The major chosen by a student can also require different amounts of work outside the classroom, consequently affecting the amount of hours one is available to work per week.

“It’s all about maintaining your own individual balance,” Lamphere said. “And if any students feel the need to talk to someone about the difficulties maintaining this balance then the counseling service is here to help.”

Posted by Valerie Poss on Aug 4 2011. Filed under Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.