To Sum Up

As I've been working on this blog since April, I've actually learned a lot about college students and school. There is lots of information, and studies that have been conducted about how working in school effects college students. Through time management, networking, and time management, we learn to balance our time to do the best that we can at everything.

After doing this research for my blog, I have come to terms with the fact that although I really enjoy my job, I would love the opportunity to explore other paths in college. Working is a necessity for me, and although I would not be able to quit at this time, I am planning to look into other options, such as scholarships and different forms of financial aid. Looking at both sides of this argument objectively, there are countless benefits to working while in college, like finally learning how to manage my time in a way that would allow me to prosper in both areas of my life.

Though I will continue to work, being able to explore this city we live in would also be an amazing way to pass the time. I would love to be involved in college activities and just enjoy having free time to explore other hobbies. Work is something that I have always enjoyed, not just because of the paycheck I receive every two weeks, but also because I really do enjoy my job. On the other hand, I have recently found other hobbies such as reading, and just having free time to go out with friends. Having more time would allow me to pursue other hobbies such as getting involved in internships and volunteering in programs more geared towards my Criminal Justice major.

I would like to continue working on this blog, as I feel partly as if it is a journal for me that has given me a chance to answer a lot of the questions that I have always had about choosing to work while in school. Researching for this blog has given me a lot of insight about reasons that college students work, such as financial aid not being offered to them, or wanting to have spending money throughout the semester.

One thing that has stood out to me so far, is that about fifteen years ago, it was reasonable to assume a college student could work part time, even just during summer, and pay to put themselves through college. With the cost of tuition constantly rising, and classes becoming more and more impacted at universities, that's become less of a reality for students of our generation. In the future I would like to look into the different options students have to earn different scholarships to help offset the cost of college, and to allow them to take advantage of new opportunities offered at school.

How Much Work is Too Much Work?

With many of us students facing the reality that Financial Aid and grants are no longer as much help with paying for our college tuition, many turn to working to help cover the costs of earning a degree. In an article written by Laura W. Perna, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, "Today nearly one in ten, (roughly 8%) of full-time, traditional-age undergraduates is employed at least thirty-five hours a week." Although to most that doesn't seem like a significant amount, the fact of the matter is, those eight percent of college students are working about as many hours a week as their parents do, while still attending school full time.

As I mentioned previously, most college institutions suggest that if students want to work, they should work no more than 20 hours weekly. They also encourage students to work on campus versus off campus.

Having worked an average of 50 hours a week for most of this semester, I agree that there is definitely a limit to how much students should work while in school. From my experience, working too much affected my study habits as well as my health. For one thing, it made me much more irritable, and I had less patience after having to pull all nighters on Sundays week after week. I also was not able to have any free time, which made my weeks go by in a blur, with nothing but work, school, homework and classes. I was unable to do things that most college students partake in.

I also noticed that it was very hard for me to stay awake in a lot of my classes, and I depended on energy drinks and other sources of caffeine to stay awake, which can be very unhealthy. Studies have shown that now more than ever college students have become more dependent on energy drinks and coffee to stay awake and alert through their everyday life. Most of us consume more caffeine than we are actually aware of.

In the chart above, from the Brief Addiction Science Information Source, many students report consuming energy drinks for various reasons, some of which being not having enough sleep, and feeling the need for an energy boost.

It's common for us to feel stressed, or really tired, do you use energy drinks to compensate for a lack of sleep?

Schedule Flexibility

Having worked since I was just 16 for the same company,  I have to say that they've always been very flexible with my availability. Whether it's working around the fact that all throughout high school I was only available to work closing shifts unless it was the weekend, or the fact that I didn't like working Friday's or Sunday's for most of my Senior year of high school, my job has always given me the hours to accommodate my schedule.

From my experience working in malls for the last three years, I've heard of many different shifts that college and high school students work to fit into their already hectic schedules. This makes it very beneficial for students because it's easier to not have to pick between work and school. My current job is known to be very flexible with it's shifts, not forcing employees to pick between work, school and a social life. There have been rare occasions where I've had to put aside my social life to work a shift at work, but to this day I've never regretted it.

I accredit a lot of the flexibility to the awesome managers that I've been lucky enough to encounter so far in my life. Being young college students or fresh graduates themselves, they too understand what it's like to be a teenager. It's rare that I've had to pick between the two. I've also encountered jobs that weren't as flexible with my already busy schedule, such as being a server.

Now as I've moved into a management position, I hope to also be able to offer that opportunity to employees. With companies geared towards hiring teenagers and young adults for their staff, it's nice to know that they try to make it easy for us to fit school and work into our daily life.

Finding a job that fits your preferred schedule is a huge relief when things can already be stressful with school.  Allyson Doyle compiled a list of the top fifteen jobs that work well with the schedules of college students. Although I haven't tried these, it seems they are beneficial to try out if you're looking for a job that fits into your schedule, for example, working as a library monitor, or receptionist somewhere on campus.

From classmates experience, I've seen that there's a job that fits for everyone. Many college students attempt to find jobs where they can essentially be paid to sit and do their homework.

In your experience, what jobs have you encountered that were super flexible with your hectic schedule?

Time Management

It seems there is somewhat of a thin line between benefiting from learning to balance work and school, and working too much which leads to grades suffering. That threshold is an average of working 20 hours a week at an on-campus job. As Kim Clark reported for US News, working no more than those 20 hours a week is a good way for college students to learn time management while also putting some extra money in their pockets. Working while in college can help better gear you to work with different types of people in group projects and in the future, as well as help you network with others in your same field of study.

Though there are many pros to adding in a few shifts of work to your busy school schedule, there are some cons as well. One, is that it is very easy to become overworked. Taking extra shifts to earn more, and some students even work multiple jobs to support themselves while in college. Soon going to classes becomes rare, and getting assignments done on time becomes harder and harder to incorporate into an already hectic schedule. Working while being a full time student can help you become a more well rounded person with the experiences you'll get working with people of different backgrounds and work ethics, but it can also easily take the spot as your number one priority, leaving school as a second priority.

For some of us working is a necessity which means that even if it did become too stressful, there is not much leeway for the person to just quit their job and focus on their studies. They simply have to continue working anyway, which one could argue would help the student learn to manage their time better. But there are the scenarios where the overall outcome of working while in school does more harm than good. Although studies and research have found that there are many positive benefits to balancing work and school, many students are simply too tired, and miss out on a lot of the things they could be doing on campus for work.

Scholarships.com offers some tips for time management for college students here.

Walking around campus, or even just at my own place of work, there are times when you can see school and working to support yourself takes a toll. Some of us pull all nighters on top of work and attending classes to get assignments and projects done, which can lead to being less than alert during classes. Several times I have found myself fighting to keep my drowsy eyes open during class or even during an exam that I had just spent the whole night studying for.

Learning to balance time between work and school proves to be a huge task, but as I finish my first year of college, I feel that working and going to school full time has proved itself a challenge that I can say has taught me better study habits. Seeing the outcome of not studying properly or adequately for a test has shown me how much better I feel when I devote a good amount of time to an assignment and receive a good grade on it.

If you've also experienced this same struggle as a college student, what habits have you formed to help manage your time between working and going to school?

Missing the College Experience?

Many students consider working while in college as a way to be more productive with their free time. Working shifts, and earning money during their time off offers students a beneficial perk: MONEY. While many students choose to not work while in school, and tend to spend their off time leisurely during the week and weekend, some of us instead consider having a job as a good way to spend our time.

From experience, when I first considered getting a job, it seemed like a productive way to spend my free time because instead of just sleeping until noon, or spending an entire weekend in watching Netflix, I would be making money in my free time. Soon, it became evident that working was no longer something fun to do during my free time, and it became another obligation of its own. With nearly 80% of college students working while in school, it's hard to imagine that there's much time left at the end of a hectic week to spend on things that we would like to do, such as going out with friends, or sleeping in.

Now that I have pretty much no free time, I have changed my mind on my original thought process. Upon entering college last fall, I believed that free time just fostered bad decisions such as partying and staying out late. Now, as we are wrapping up the spring semester, I've learned that having free time, or as it's called in Careen Yarnel's article, "Teach Students Benefits of Positive Leisure Time Use," leisure time, can be very beneficial to developing ones self, especially during college. There are so many positive things that we can do when given the time to. Yarnel points out that spending time relaxing with family and friends can help students unwind from hectic school schedules.

Throughout this year, I've seen how many different things I would like to get involved in, but I simply lack the free time to do them. Along with the other college students who work full time, I understand that I've chosen to give up my free time in a chance to gain financial independence at a young age. If I did not work, or just did not work as much, I would have the opportunity to volunteer in things things that I am interested in, or read more. These are examples of the things that Yarnel labels as character building.

These activities can increase social activity and happiness overall. Allowing students to step away from the stress of school, and share laughs with friends and family.

What kinds of positive activities would you like to do, or do you already do with your free time?

Pushing School to the Backburner

Over the years that I've worked while being in school, I regularly get into the habit of putting school on the backburner. Between covering shifts, being scheduled more hours, even taking on additional jobs, it's hard to keep sight on the number one goal: earn my degree. Being that I'm not the only college student who works, I know that I am not the only one who faces this dilemma.

Going to work becomes a routine, one that shows quick return on the time that is invested. Receiving my paycheck every two weeks continues to push me to work more hours. Being financially stable and as independent of my parents as possible motivates me to work more hours than I should.

The saying, "I'm an employee first and a student second" comes to mind when I think about the time that I've dedicated to my job over the last few years. Whether it's giving up preparation time the day before Junior Prom, or sacrificing the time I set aside to study to get more things done at work, I can constantly find different examples of times when I've fallen victim to the black hole of working while being in school. With a college degree being an ongoing goal, it's easy to lose sight when being rewarded with a larger paycheck offers a faster payoff. Although, as I get older, and have been balancing work with school longer, I start to wonder if the payoff is really all that beneficial?

Although it's not a huge percentage, it's a significant amount of students who are working full time while enrolled in school. This graph gives you an idea:

I can name countless times I've gone to class to take a test that I knew I should have studied more for, but I chose to work instead. It raises the question, "Does it hurt students more to work while in college?" We all have our own individual reasons for working, but does it really help us to sacrifice our study time just to earn a bigger paycheck a bit sooner than our classmates?

In a study done by the US Department of Education, they interviewed working students and asked them specifically how they felt that working had affected their academic standing. Some of their findings showed that students who work find that working limits their access to school facilities and resources, class schedules and amount of classes taken each semester, as well as the actual classes that they take.

Personally, I feel that I can vouch for the accuracy of their findings. Working 40-50 hours weekly has definitely limited the amount of time that I have to go to the advising center, or study at the library. I also know that as a manger, I have to take into consideration my work schedule when I begin to register for classes for the upcoming semester. Typically, I'm needed for opening shifts so that I can get tasks done and respond to emails during regular business hours for our corporate office. That definitely puts limitations on the classes that I can enroll in for school, allowing me to take night classes mainly.

The Final Stretch

With finals quickly approaching, everyone's stress levels are rising. We all have that moment when we realize we're completely drowned in essays, final tests, and projects, and it seems nearly impossible to complete everything on time. With the arrival of finals, typically comes the arrival of sunshine, the biggest nemesis to college students during the last few weeks of the semester. While all of the tests to study for, essays to write, and books to read say, "you should just go to the library and work on your assignments," the beautiful San Francisco sunshine says, " the beach is really only a 5 minute drive from campus!"

In class all I keep hearing about is different dates for finals, student-professor conferences to schedule, due dates for projects and essays and the like. What most people don't know, is that I also dedicate roughly 40 hours a week to my job. As the store manager, not only am I given even more deadlines and due dates for tasks that need to be completed, but I also have to stay attentive to the needs to everyone else in our store. When I say I work a full-time job, I really mean "full-time." Just because I leave the store does not mean that I am officially done with work. I'm pretty much on call at any time of day for any situation that may occur. 

 Kayla Hedman, as well as Carley Christianson, there are several different things that college students can do to eliminate as much stress as possible during the stressful weeks of finals, and in general. A couple of things they both had in common was making the time to exercise, as well as eating healthy foods, getting adequate amounts of sleep, and taking breaks to do relaxing things like watching Youtube videos to clear your mind. Those are some of the things that I do already to relieve some of the stress that I encounter during the semester. 

One tip they both mentioned that never really occurred to me was learning to say NO. As a student who also manages a store, I constantly find myself spreading my time too thin, which really adds to the stress of trying to get projects, essays and study guides done on time. Never has it really come to my attention that I, and only I am in charge of how I spend my time, and learning to say no to people when I have a lot of tasks to complete would be wise. Trying to balance a social life, work, and school proves itself especially difficult during finals while I try to still have a social life, keep my store running, and still get all of my school work done on time. Semester after semester, finals week continues to be the most difficult time of year due to balancing a hectic, seemingly never ending to do list. 

What different tricks have you tried or found successful during finals week to manage stress levels?

Student Life

Around campus there's always a variety of different types of students. There are the really involved students who take part in different clubs and organizations on campus, planning different events and activities on and off campus. There are the students who aren't too involved, but still spend a lot of time on campus, there are also the students who are rarely on campus, and everything in between. According to a study from Indiana University conducted by Sociologists Daniel Rudel and Natasha Yurk, "Responsibility or Liability? Student Loan Debt and Time Use in College," a student's overall college experience can be classified by the amount of debt they're collecting while completing college.

According to the study, there are three main types of attitudes students typically have depending on their financial standing with the university. They can be classified as the students with the "play hard" mentality. These are usually the students who are more involved in campus and meeting new people through different activities. Then there are the "disengaged students," who have debt and tend to hold back from taking part in extracurriculars on campus, in many cases to devote their time to a part time job. The last of the three are the "serious students," who have debt, but typically involve themselves in campus and dedicate more time to working and studying with intentions to prepare them for the future.

In response to the term disengaged, assigned to students of the middle category, who opt to work in order to compensate for the rising cost of attending college, I do not believe that is fair to assume that these students do not WANT to take part in activities on campus. In many situations, it is a necessity for these students to work to help balance the cost of living, especially here in San Francisco.

In a society where just about of 80% of full time college students are also working, it's the reality that we now face. As Svati Kirsten Narula points out in her analysis of how it is no longer reasonable for a college student to pay for their own education by working part time either throughout the year, or by obtaining a summer job. Whereas before, it was reasonable to assume that if a student worked about 20 hours a week part-time, or had a summer job, they could pay for most, if not all of their tuition, leaving them without debt by the time they graduated. Now, according to the numbers that Narula has calculated, it would require a college student to work about 48 hours week at minimum wage to try and pay the cost of tuition each semester.

This graph from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows the increase in student debt over the last few years.

Taking these statistics into account, I feel that this middle group of students is misunderstood. In a time of financial stress for many, it's become more of a necessity than a choice for college students to work. Sacrificing the carefree lifestyle that many college students look forward to taking part in, as well as missing out on the opportunity to be involved on campus.

A New Age of Learning

As a 19 year old Freshman in college who has worked since I was 16, I am interested in how much dedicating my time outside of classes to work instead of a club or organization will alter my overall college experience. Will I graduate and feel that I missed out because I wasn't able to take advantage of everything that is offered here at San Francisco State University?

Many of us are told that college is really a time to get involved, to join that sorority or fraternity, take part in that club or student association, or join a sports team to make connection and meet new people. My overall goal for this blog is to do some research, and possibly interview different mall employees who are also college students to see how working while being enrolled in school full time can effect the overall expected "college experience." What I would like to discover is, does dedicating most of your free time to working versus extracurricular campus activities have a long-term effect on what you take from college overall? Do students who have worked their way through college feel that they have missed out on the going with the flow vibe of college in exchange for making money. I question this, because many of my classmates intend to do internships and study abroad and do things that are related to their major so that they are much more ahead of others graduating college in their same field of study. 

Another thing that I am hoping to learn more about, is how much of a difference it can make on your grades to work or not to work while in college? From experience I know that it is very difficult at times to stay focused on both school and work, making sure that you are getting assignments turned in on time and attending classes. Especially as the semester goes on and coursework for your classes picks up as does the amount of hours that you are given at work. Does working while in college affect student's GPA in the end?

In a 2011 census taken by the United States Census Bureau, in 2011 about nineteen percent of college students who were enrolled in school full time were also employed full-time. It's this rise the amount of college students working, that sparked my interest and made me decide to start a blog about it. Do college students in today's society benefit from working by increasing the connections they make, or would we benefit just as much from joining fraternities and sororities and making connections through those organizations instead? Joining a fraternity or a sorority would also lend a hand in giving college students that "college experience" of having fun and making connections.

Throughout the next few weeks, I would like to take a look into different aspects of the changing social norm of today's college students. Whereas before it was not very common that college students would also work while pursuing their degree, in today's day and age, it's very likely you'll hear students talking about the stress of having to split their time between working and studying.