<p>Do work study jobs go fast? Say if I applied the first week of school, would I be able to start the job on the second week if I am hired? Or is it a better bet to just work at some regular part time job for the money/time invested looking for a job?</p>
<p>Depends. How big is your award? How many hours are you planning on working? </p>
<p>Work study jobs have the benefit of being tied to campus, thus ensuring that your studies will take priority over scheduling. Not every other employer will allow that. Also, there's the fact that there aren't exactly that many part-time jobs floating around that fit a college schedule.</p>
<p>Work study jobs hire year-round, so there are jobs that start before the school year as well as those after and in the middle. The only thing they require is that you have a work study award (and sometimes they require a specific minimum, to ensure you're both getting the benefit of time spent in the process) and the hours to give to the job.</p>
<p>Does anybody know, in his or her opinion, the maximum hours that should be devoted to work-study, per week, without impacting our GPA or social life?</p>
<p>can you get paid in work/study even if you are not eligible for financial aid?</p>
<p>If you do not have Work Study listed in your financial aid, then you cannot work for work study jobs. If you have a unsubsidized loan available, you can convert that to work study.</p>
<p>As for work study, it depends on what kind of boss and job you have. I only worked 6 hrs/wk last year, so it was light and easy.</p>
<p>no i work at a lab and was wondering if they can pay me in that format even though i am not on financial aid</p>
<p>Work study must be a part of your financial aid package. The only way to add it if you do not otherwise have it is to do as sparetire says and convert federal loans (I don't think they have to be unsubsidized; they seem to have converted my subsidized loans!) to an equivalent Work study amount.</p>
<p>That award is not given to you directly, but rather becomes a pool from which your employer will draw in order to pay you your wages. This is why you cannot earn work study monies without a work study award -- it's a federally subsidized wage.</p>
<p>The impact of a job on GPA or social life will depend on: 1) the job; 2) your study habits; 3) what you're studying; 4) your friends. If your friends only ever do things during the hours you'll end up working or your schedule requires you to use your free hours for homework instead of doing stuff, your social life will suffer greatly; if, however, you're good at time management, have an easy course load and only ever do things in the evenings, you're golden.</p>
<p>As a rule of thumb, try to avoid working at all during your first semester at Cal. After that, balance it based on your individual assessment of your life, the job you want and the course load you tend to carry, and try to keep it below 20 hours. 10 is probably the upper end of minimum impact on your life, but most jobs I've seen tend to hire for 15-20 during the school year and 40 during breaks.</p>
<p>Which reminds me: work study is for the entire school YEAR. That means you can use it for employment during the summer and during winter and spring breaks, if you can find a job to hire you for that time.</p>