I have heard that there is research showing that students perform better in college when they have a part-time (10-15 hours per week) job.
Are these kinds of jobs plentiful at most schools?
If we can give ds about $50 per week, plus whatever he earns working over the summer, would he need to work? Should we encourage him to work even if he doesn’t need to?
I do think he will need a lot of time to study, and he is NOT the best when it comes to organization/time management. I am spending these last few months trying to help him with these skills, but I think there’s going to be a pretty big learning curve.
He might choose a program that requires extra meetings/events and some service projects. I’m not sure how time consuming that will be.
Any thoughts?
How have you handled this with your dc when there is not necessarily a need to work?
Both my Ds worked during school - one in the library (good for down time studying) and the other doing math tutoring. Both did well in school. I can see your concern if your S is not organized. A job would almost force the time management to happen or it could be bad.
All three of my kids worked from the time they arrived on campus. I made sure they had updated resumes in hand on that very first day - the money was not needed. D1 applied for a paid internship that nobody else wanted because it was in a less-than-desirable location. She kept that internship through all four years of college, made fabulous connections, and when she graduated (at the height of the economic downturn), she had solid experience to get her first job, which led to her dream job a year later. She was the first from her department to be employed in the field, at a time when jobs were scarce. On the first day of classes freshman year, D2’s department posted an open position in her field. She had her resume and was the first to apply. She was hired and stayed in the department in positions of increasing responsibility and visibility through four years. Even earning a fancy title on the website by senior year. By a happy accident, that position was the ground floor of the hot direction in her field, so she was able to list very specific tasks, successes and progress on her resume - which her classmates were not able to do. It was hugely beneficial on her resume. S is less motivated, so he has a job at dining services which pays all of his spending money. It’s not as fancy as his sisters’ jobs were, but it has helped to show work ethic and responsibility, which helped him get a stunningly prestigious internship last summer.
I don’t see a downside. Last semester, my son had a very tough workload with classes and scaled back to 5 hours a week from the 10-15 he had previously and subsequently. Many jobs are flexible. There are often jobs in academic departments. Those can be amazingly helpful for many reasons in terms of the big picture.
S got a job in the Controller’s office doing basic record keeping his Freshmen yr. He’s a business student. His responsibilities have increased and he’s getting practical experience that’s tangible to his accounting and finance classes. He plans on working there 10 hrs/week all four years. They already told him he can work as much as he wants. The Controller will write him LOR . This was not a work study job. He just found out about it and applied early on. Great experience and it’s nice not having to send him money at all as it covers all his incidental expenses.
Would your son like to have a job for the extra income? If he thinks he can handle it, great. If he isn’t sure, maybe seeing how he manages his life without a job for the first semester makes sense.
My 3 daughters worked in college, either at on-campus jobs that were a good opportunity to study or in retail. One worked the candy counter at her student union; one staffed a desk in her residence hall until 1 AM. The daughter who did retail worked maybe 20-25 hours per week and thought the extra money was worth the trade-off in less time on campus.
Oldest worked every summer but not during the school year. Younger kid also worked every summer, and also worked about 10-15 hours a week during junior and senior years as an undergraduate TA.
It may be the thing that gets your son organized as he’ll have less free time. S has a very structured day between class, work (3 or 4 days per week), clubs, working out, and studying. He actually uses a planner and schedules things. Still has plenty of time to socialize because he makes good use of his time during the day. You can get a lot done with that hour or two between classes.
My Freshman works 10 hours/week. He loves having the extra spending money and not having to dip into the money he saved over the summer. IMO he is spending too much money (mostly on food, food delivery, concert tickets, and Uber) so he’s not learning the “poor college student” lessons that I did. But it’s his money and time to manage now.
I wanted him to work an on-campus job (food service or resident life) because I thought he would make some friends that way but he decided to reach out to his supervisor from his summer internship. They worked out a plan for him to work remotely at his own pace.
Absolutely they had jobs. The youngest, who was a two sport athlete, worked on campus for 3 years and then added another off-campus job the fourth. The oldest worked a part-time job off campus starting second semester of freshman year. The off-campus jobs not only helped them manage their time and make money, but provided valuable work experiences in their fields (healthcare and computer science). Yes, I would have expected them to work even if they didn’t need the money (but they did), and I would have encouraged work by not providing any to spend.
Unlike the high school school day, when students are locked into a schedule 8-3 (or 4 or 5 if there are after school ECs), college gives them a lot of free time between classes, and my experience as someone who’s worked with college freshmen for the last quarter century is that all the free time/lack of structure hurts the poor time managers far more than it helps. Jobs add some much-needed structure.
Not yet. We encouraged her to take the first year and figure out the course load and how much free time she would really have. She’ll definitely work over the summer and re-assess next year. No problems not having enough structure. She’s plenty busy!
S who is now a sophomore worked last 2 summers and is now working as a writing mentor and a TA for one of his classes. Great resume builder and good source of extra money.
It really depends on your kid and the school. I agree that jobs provide structure and that experience is great when they start looking for internships and jobs after graduation. At the same time, if finances are not an issue for you, then he could ease into his schedule freshman year, and look for a job later. DS has a TA position and his hours vary depending on his schedule. His school schedule is very busy, 6.5-7/ semester, and he is also involved in volunteering and social clubs. We didn’t require him to get a job during school, but he needs to work during the summer.
Also, many of the PT jobs on campus are for work study only.
I had scholarships and worked food service during the school year my last three semesters plus jobs summers when I could find them. Wish I did not need to take the time away from studies and could have enjoyed more college perks.
Fast forward- translated my (and H’s) hard work into being able to pay all college costs. Gifted son ended up at our flagship a bit before turning seventeen. He did his work in the honors program and his only during school job was in the math tutoring lab one semester. He is still frugal despite a high paying job, just as we were frugal despite high incomes. It was better for him to take more classes than to earn some money. He worked at H’s office one summer, had an REU another. Took some local U classes another as we refused to let him do nothing.
Working during college is a necessity for some due to finances and good for some to be disciplined. I do not consider it ideal for many who could benefit from being able to take heavier course loads and have some time for leisure/stress reduction. I suppose there are some/many who would not take advantage of the time to do more academics and a job helps them from squandering time.
Atypical here. I suspect H’s Indian background was an influence on work attitudes. Both of us value education over money.
DS16 works an on campus job that has flexibility. If he really needs to he can trade off a shift. He also picks up shifts at times to help out others. It works very well for him/us as he is respoifor his own “fun” money. We could give it to him but it was time he learned to earn and budget for his own wants. We cover the needs.
My son made the Dean’s List the year he started working. He only worked senior year. Junior year he was abroad. Sophomore year he was too worried about failing Arabic. He’s very frugal so lived on savings.
My older son in CS did not work during the school year, though I imagine he could have. He made so much money on internships and is also not one to spend a lot of money.
I think there’s value in work in addition to money. One of the benefits of a job is learning how to work. I got that, my daughters got that; I think my ex-husband didn’t. He didn’t work in high school or the first few years of college. Our daughters and I did, and we’ve been in the work force with few breaks since. My ex has had long periods of unemployment.
Yes, but not the first year (except a few gigs as a referee).
After that, fortunately, the work was major-related and a great experience and resume item in itself. I think it’s 15 or so hours now, between two different jobs.
We asked that S not work his first year to acclimate himself. He had his worst year GPA wise. The last three years he worked during school year and summers and he performed much better GPA wise.
Yes, my kids worked all the way through. They got -0- spending money from me. I paid the bill that came from the bursar (tuition and on-campus housing) – they were responsible for the rest (incidentals, text-books, and food after the first year when they were no longer on mandatory meal plans). I did also pay for cell phone with family plans.
My daughter sometimes juggled as many as 5 different part-time jobs along with her studies. She built up a good resume of varied work experience and made some good networking connections along the way. She graduated summa cum laude— there was never a time when work interfered with studies.
My son-in-law also worked through college, and his techie on-campus job ended up being a direct lead-in to his career with a top tech company. He did not have a major directly related to his campus job or current line of work.
So in addition to other reasons, I’m a great believer in the benefit of student employment because of the job skills gained as well as the value for resume-building and references. It opens a lot of doors post-college to have a good work history to offer employers on top of the educational credentials.