Balancing A Job

According to the Huffington Post, nearly four out of five college students are working a part-time job while studying for their degrees. For several reasons, these students need to acquire cash and they do so by obtaining jobs around or on their campus. However, more often than not, students struggle with keeping their GPA up while putting in hours at their part-time job. Students like Keisha M. Carr, are taking up to fifteen credits a semester-the equivalent of five classes-all while putting in twenty hours of work into their already busy schedule. These students need to learn how to maintain equilibrium between working and attending classes in order to be successful in both elements. The one out of five students who attend college opt out …show more content…
Being a student grants you the access of many job opportunities on campus. For instance, in Oklahoma State University, Erin Pretotta states that, “Students can work with faculty members in research labs, campus offices unrelated to their major, lifeguard, referee, student research assistant, campus tour guide, office assistant, editor/writer for the school newspaper, media relations contact for an athletics team, technology support, dining services, and residential assistant”. By getting a job on campus and related to your major-as stated in James Citrin’s book The Career Playbook-a student can be pushing for their success in both their part-time jobs and in their future career field. Getting these jobs is an easy process. Pretotta exemplifies this when she states: “[you can find on-campus jobs by] getting in touch with a school’s career services office or a job …show more content…
On the interview I conducted, Christina Marroquin gave the tip to: “start off with only a few days [at work] and see how that affects you. If you 're ok then ask for more hours at work, but don 't overdo it. It 's not worth putting school at risk”. Writing a schedule seemed to help Keisha Carr a great deal. Carr suggested to write out a weekly schedule that is color coded. In her schedule, “the blue shows classes, the green shows extracurricular activities, the red shows work, yellow shows study time, orange is scheduled downtime (eating, exercising, TV watching, etc) and don 't forget to add commuting time”. Carr additionally suggested that one should be honest with scheduling and leave time open, include due dates in schedules and to discuss options with your employer early when you know you’ll have a busy month filled with due dates-for example, finals week. Along with Carr’s suggestions, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research says that a student should find a job that has predictable schedules, gives you a say in scheduling so that work does not conflict with classes, and allows the student to request schedule changes without fear of negative consequences. Although a lot of students have to follow these guidelines, some