Jacob Capron
Staff Writer
Long gone are the days where students are just students as the rates of tuition rise alongside cost of living in many places around the US. Increasingly, students need to work more to keep up, even working multiple jobs.
“Working is now a fundamental responsibility for many undergraduates,” reported the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in their article, Understanding the Working College Student.
According to the AAUP, the optimal amount of hours that students should be working is 10 to 15 hours per week. However, some students are working way more than the recommended 15 hours.
Sam Perkins, a UW sophomore, works at both Burger King as a crew member and at Pete’s Game room in the Union. Sam works around 35 hours each week, over twice the recommended amount of hours.
“It’s hard to find time for both [school and work],” said Perkins. Perkins said his job at Burger King changes every week, but he needs both jobs to get by.
These sort of hours are not uncommon. John Brady, a UW graduate student, works three jobs; as a bartender, airport agent and a grad assistant, causing him to work upwards of 40 hours each week.
“My jobs are too hard to balance, [but] they’re pretty flexible,” said Brady.
The ability to balance work and school is only one of the reasons some students are wary of working multiple jobs. On Reddit threads, there are many posts looking for advice regarding if they should, and if so, how to handle working more than one job while attending school.
“My biggest advice here is you have to keep an eye on your health. Not just physical, but especially mental. That kind of workload can be extremely overwhelming for your body,” posted Reddit user xAidynx, a self-reported nursing student.
Some students, like Martin Vasquez, would advise others to “keep the main thing, the main thing,” regardless if that main thing is work or school. Vasquez, like Brady, is a UW graduate student who is working close to 40 hours a week.
The College of St. Scholastica reported up to 40% percent of undergraduates work at least 30 hours a week. This means if a student working those hours attends class and studies for the recommended amount of 12 credit hours, they would be working 66 hours per week.
Reddit user Thisisallie talked about their experience as a full time nursing student, taking 15 credit hours alongside two part time jobs. This equaled 30 hour work weeks and a struggle to be able to commit to classes.
Brady said he would advise students to look for benefits when it comes to their jobs. For example, Brady’s different jobs offer him free meals, free flights and his tuition is paid through his graduate assistantship. Looking for other ways to get paid is a great way to decide which job or jobs a student should be working.
“You’re not gonna get paid well anyway,” said Brady.
Perkins, while talking about his problems finding time, said blocking out time for doing homework was the only way he could get it done.
While students like Perkins work to pay the bills and get by, Vasquez uses his multiple sources of income to “relieve the financial” and enjoy life more .
“First semester of the grad program, I just live on my stipend,” said Vasquez.
Students like Brady and Vasquez both talked about having good time management skills and while those skills could certainly help, many students still struggle finding a balance between matching their financial realities and their academic ones.
