Background: This fall I’ll be a sophomore in college and it is the first time I will have a job. All throughout high school I never worked because I had family obligations (younger siblings to care for since my parents both worked evening shifts on and off, etc) so I never really learned how to juggle academics and a job at the same time.
I’ll be working as a TA for my University’s English Department. 15 dollars an hour; the hours are pretty flexible - anywhere from 5 to 15 hours a week depending on how often I want to work, how hectic my schedule is (midterm week, finals week, etc.) and so on. I have a lot of autonomy as to when I want to work.
This fall I’ll also be taking a graduate English course which in of itself will likely be time consuming. This will be my first graduate course.
Some other pertinent information: I’m on a full merit scholarship that requires a 3.3 to maintain, so my GPA is pretty important. On top of that, I’m interested in pursuing law school in the future, so I have to keep my GPA as high as possible.
Question: For those who had children that worked in college (either on-campus or off-campus) - how did they manage their time effectively? How did their academics fare? Any advice, insight, tips, thoughts, etc are greatly appreciated.
You’ve pretty much nailed it in terms of picking a good job; one with flexible hours. SO helpful in college. I worked roughly 6-8 hours a week for work-study last semester and found it pretty manageable, though my job wasn’t tough. I think you will be fine learning to juggle, just start off slowly. Know that the job is low on the priority list compared to your academics/scholarship, and you should do fine.
I recommend you set your hours and try to stick to them. In college I worked 3 hours per day, 5 days per week. The hours were flexible, but I found I couldn’t vary them much, and if I said I’d skip a day and make it up, I never made it up. It was hard to work more than 3 hours at a time (I did typing in the library). I did best when I just stuck to the hours I scheduled. i worked for an office that was open 8-5, and while I probably could have gotten access at other times, I just worked when there were others in the office.
If you can schedule your classes in blocks, leaving a block of time open to work, do that.
For your first semester, I suggest you set up your class schedule with the intent to work 2 blocks of time each week during normal weeks. I suggest a 2-3 hour work block. A longer work block less frequently would be easier to deal with than many 1 hour work blocks. You have to figure in the coming and going to work, and the interruption in your studies.
After your first semester’s experience, you will have a better feel for how many hours of work you can handle each week. And like you said, GPA and academics come first. There is so much adjustment the first semester, so a lighter work load might make better sense.
My grades improved once I started working. Having a regular job with regular hours made me plan my days better and gave me time where it was easy to go to the library instead of back to the dorm room. I think 10 hours a week is about perfect, but 15 is definitely doable. I wouldn’t do more than that.
My D held down several jobs that totalled 16 hrs/week from her very first semester. It definitely affected her GPA, but was a financial necessity that she willingly agreed to in order to be able to attend her top college choice. She is a hard worker and very internally motivated, so she managed to keep the minimum GPA for all her scholarships. But she won’t be graduating at the tippy top of her class.
For our family, it has been a good trade off to have her work in the lab for her major and gain valuable experience. She is also getting to know the professors in her major department.
We suggested S not work first year to give him to time to acclimate. Although grades were okay (just under 3.2), he wanted to go to med school. In next 3 years he worked at on campus lab (10 hours week?) during school year, got grades up, went to med school. So for S work was IMO huge plus as it required him to manage his time more effectively. Also adding to powercropper, S ended up working in lab of prof/ dept. chair who ended up writing strong LOR for him. So working provided S with great connection.
As an undergraduate TA, you’re expected to hold office hours and grade papers, right?
You’ll be very busy just before an exam or the due deadline for a paper because that’s when everybody comes to the help room. And you’ll be very busy when papers or exams need to be graded. The rest of the time, you can probably do your own studying during office hours because almost nobody will show up.
@Marian - I think my responsibilities primarily will be to meet with students from my assigned sections individually to help them with assignments but I most likely will not be grading papers (I’m a TA for Freshman English so the professor will likely be the one grading essays and there aren’t any exams - just 3 to 5 essays for the semester). I’m also required to periodically make appearances in the class itself (something like at least 6 times) so the students know who I am and know where and when they can meet with me.
I recommend you schedule 3x per week for 2.5 hours each time. It will be like a class with no homework, and in fact, you can sometimes do your own homework in this “class”. Make your schedule and tell the kids in the class when you will be available. Then you will have to stick to it since you told people you would be there.
If you try to make your schedule week by week, there will always be something that you try to do instead. As someone else mentioned “if I skip work today I can make it up tomorrow” is not a good strategy.
I am only taking classes on TuWTh – I have early morning classes from 8am till noon on Tuesday and Thursday and then I have one three hour long class on Wednesday night (4pm to 7pm) – Monday and Friday I have completely free. I commute to school (an hour each way) but I am more than willing to show up on my days off for “work.” Actually, come to think of it, making myself come to school on my days off will likely motivate me to get other stuff done too (studying, homework, working out, etc.)