<p>I'm stuck in a bit of a predictament. I'm a computer engineering major that took most of my classes during the first two years of college at a community collge. I also took four classes at Portland State University, which is the university that I am transferring to, during the first two years. The community college was cheap enough that I could work during the summer and make enough money for the school year along with help from a scholarship.</p>
<p>Now that I've transferred schools, I'm not going to make enough this summer to pay for school. I'm set to take 16 credit/hrs fall term which comes out to about $3300 for the term. Winter and spring term I'll be taking 12 credit/hrs, which will probably cost about $2600 a term. With those rough estimates, tution alone will cost me $8500, which means I'm about $1000 short. Being that those numbers don't include books I can't find online/lab equipment/online homework tool fees/etc, it could be much more.</p>
<p>So right now I'm toying with the idea of contining to load trailers at FedEx Ground like I have been all summer. I get around 20 hours a week there monday-friday. If I were to work there through fall term, I could make $2000 easily, and I could also get the $1500 tution reembersment program that they offer. Meaning that I could get $3500 from working one more term.</p>
<p>It sounds like a great setup, but I'm afraid that I'll have a hard time keeping my grades up. I currently have a 3.89 GPA and study A LOT for those grades. Last year especially, I spent almost all of my day doing homework/running through example problems/learning material on my own/reverse engineering problems to understand how to solve the problems (especially in my circuits analysis class). Classes like differential equations, circuits analysis and physics were huge time sinks to the point where I could spend 2-4 hours a day working on stuff for one class easily. The only time I had to myself was 30 minutes before bed to read and roughly an hour for excerise a day.</p>
<p>My schedule fall term won't be easy. I currently have electroncs I, semiconductor physics, systems programming and microprocessors on my schedule. Electronics is a continuation of circuits analysis. I struggled with circuits analysis and had to put A LOT of time into doing example problems for that class (2+ hours a night) to get a B+. The electronics teacher is also known around campus as being of poor quality. Programming usually is fairly easy for me, but it's just really time consuming. I don't know what to expect with the other two classes.</p>
<p>So what do you guys think? Can I pull off working a term to make enough money for this school year and keep my grades up? If I didn't work, I'd have about 10 hours a day to do homework/study/whatever. If I work, I only have about 6 hours a day. I really don't want to take out my FAFSA because spending money I don't have really scares me. Should I try to see if I can take one of these classes my winter or spring term when I probably won't be working?</p>
<p>Nobody can answer that because we don’t know how smart you are. But if you’re worried about it, then get a student loan and don’t work. </p>
<p>Your story is the textbook case of why student loans are valuable. They allow you to devote all of your “work time” to acing your coursework to land a high paying job. Once you have a high paying job, paying off a small student loan shouldn’t be a problem. The kind of number that you’re talking about ($3500) is a trivial amount to borrow given the field that you are studying. Why risk your entire future career, worth over a $1 million dollars, over a tiny loan. People borrow 10 times that amount and can still pay it back with a good engineering job.</p>
<p>I work about 20-25hrs/week and I do just fine, but I don’t do the full 5 classes per semester, I do 3-4. Avoiding student loans is never a bad thing, I would try to do that as much as possible. I’d say take up working but scale back to maybe 3 classes for the semester and see how it goes. If you decide to keep working in the Spring and that you can handle 4 classes then go for that. It’s much better to do too little than too much. Future employers won’t care about how many classes you took in a semester.</p>
<p>EDIT: Just realized how little you would have to borrow. If it’s only a few grand then it may not be a bad idea to borrow it, though I still don’t think working is a bad idea.</p>
<p>Ok, I can take one class (systems programming) at a community college, which would drop my tution about $500 which would allow me to barely scrape by. Both the teacher that teaches the class at the university and at the community college have poor reviews on rate my professor. </p>
<p>The CC class would be online while the university class is an in-person class. I’ve only taken online CS classes up until now, so I’m used to them. I’m currently leaning towards the CC class just because it’s cheaper. Both teachers seem pretty bad, so I assume I’ll have to teach myself either way. What would you guys do?</p>
<p>I looked at your professors online, and they do both seem horrible!! However, I would take the one that teaches from the book (university professor) over the one who makes logical mistakes when writing their exams (community college professor). If work/life gets to be too much and you have to miss class or you fall behind or something, it’d be easier to know you can just read the book and learn everything from there. I know it costs more, but your education is an investment, right? Isn’t it worth it to spend a little more to get a better GPA? </p>
<p>As for the working, don’t overdo it. See what your classes are like first and then adjust your hours accordingly. You should try to keep up your excellent GPA! </p>