<p>Hello, I'm wondering, how possible is it to work at least 16 hours a week and get more than a 3.5 in Engineering? I need to work for personal issues, but I don't want to sacrifice my GPA. I'm a good student overall so I think that I would be able to get a 3.5 without working, but I am not sure if I would be able to do so working part-time. Have you done that? What do you think?</p>
<p>I work part time while attending engineering school. So far straight As but i did a lot of work preemptively. I tried to cut down as much time as possible from commute. That meant moving closer to school since i spend a lot more time going back and forth between school and home than home to work. Even then i tried be as efficient as i could with commute and scheduling.</p>
<p>First priority is school, second is work so i can pay for school. Everything else follows a priority list. Try to make your study time as productive as possible. No texting or facebooking during study time. Get a little done everyday so you dont have to cram. Look a semester ahead and the classes you will be taking. I try asking those who walked this path before me what they wish they had done differently or what classes gave them the most trouble. Adjust class load accordingly and maybe brush over the material a semester prior just to get the basics down. </p>
<p>I get by with 6 and half to 7 hrs of sleep a day. I know i’ll be at peak from the time i wake up until around 4 pm and try to do as much as possible as early as possible. Procrastination is just a fact of life, but you can manage it to minimize the impact on your academic and work lives.</p>
<p>Talk to your instructor before starting any major assignments to make sure you are heading in the right direction BEFORE investing too much time on a project that you can’t present succinctly or with too few references.</p>
<p>I think that’s it, hope it helped.</p>
<p>Fsswim1 covered a lot of good points. I will add a few more thoughts. I’ve been working at least one part time job or internship while going to school now for three years (for a year and a half I worked two pt jobs at the same time I was a stay at home parent to a newborn). </p>
<p>-Sleep deprivation is very real; set a standard bed time and stick to it unless the hw/project is due the next day. You can gain more sleep by tigthening up your morning routine (i.e. lay clothes out ahead of time, bring watch into shower to keep track of time, etc).</p>
<p>-Related to above, don’t fall behind, even a little. When you have other responsibilities that eat up what would otherwise be free time, it’s going to hit you harder than the average 3.5+ student who can absorb inefficiency better than you. </p>
<p>-Down time/personal time is important for long term stability, so think very carefully before you add on a new time commitment. This includes, but is not limited to, dating, greek life, clubs, volunteer work.</p>
<p>-Working while going to school is easier if you can spread your schedule out so that at any given time you’re not taking a huge academic load (extra semesters, summer courses, winter terms, etc). For my own circumstances, it made sense to spread 154 semester credits over 5 years rather than try to squeeze it into 4, however, you may not have this option. </p>
<p>-Related to above, if you’re the type of student who does not need to “adjust” to college, you will find, as is logical, that the upper level courses are harder than the lower level courses and require more time. Therefore it’s easier to work more hours during your first couple years. In addition, as time goes by, the grind of work/school/any other commitments will start to really eat away at your sanity. If you’re going to make it through the entire haul, you have to know when to cutback.</p>
<p>-If you equate school with work in terms of hours spent, at least assuming semester hours (if you’re on the quarter system you’ll have to come up with a different formula), you can estimate your weekly load by multiplying credit hours by 3 and adding number of work hours. Example, 15 credits * 3 = 45 + 15 hours of job = 60 hours per week. This is usually an mild overestimate until all of your classes become technical (problem solving) classes, however, it’s a good gauge to see if what you’re doing is sustainable on different time scales (15 week semester, 1 year, 4 years, etc). </p>
<p>Is it possible to maintain a good GPA while working? I’ll even say it’s possible to maintain a 4.0 on a plus/minus grading system while working. The question really is what price are you willing to pay for the results?</p>
<p>“I’m a good student overall so I think that I would be able to get a 3.5 without working” - Understand that many good students go off to college and don’t maintain a 3.5 in engineering, even if they don’t work. Do you have a scholarship riding on GPA? </p>
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The Census report at <a href=“http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acsbr11-14.pdf”>http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acsbr11-14.pdf</a> mentions that ~72% of college students work for at least a portion of the year. The majority of college students in the census report worked during at least 27 weeks of the year. Working while in college is not at all uncommon, and working does not mean it’s impossible to maintain a high GPA. If you are spending such a large portion of your day studying that taking 16 hours off per week is going to kill your GPA, then you should review your schedule and study habits. When I was in college, there were times I simultaneously had 2 different part time jobs while I was simultaneously enrolled in 3 different engineering related degrees (1 undergrad, 2 grad). I ended up graduating with the first 2 degrees early, while maintaining a GPA well above the listed threshold. I finished the 3rd degree remotely while working full time and taking a light class schedule. If the job is relevant to your degree, working can help provide valuable experience and give a new light to the material learned in your classes, when you see how the material is applied instead of just thinking about the theory.</p>
<p>A lot depends on the job. Many campus jobs are an easy gig. But my nephew, for good reasons, continued an airport job that required an hour of commuting each way. My daughter, for good reasons, took a campus job that was on an auxiliary campus 2 miles away. Usually she had to ride her bike, sometimes for two shifts per day (one hour at lunch, 2 hrs late afternoon). The commute needs to be factored in too. </p>