How to Balance School and Work
By: Amparo Perez
As we all know, being a student is a challenging process on its own. There is always so much work to complete, that even when you think you have some spare time to watch an episode of Friends on Netflix you remember you have an additional assignment to complete, so you say goodbye Friends and hello draft number one. But, for many students, like myself, school is not the only thing on our plate, we also have work on the side to get those bills paid.
In my experience, working and going to school in the beginning of my journey did not result as well as I hoped. I got my first job as an accounting specialist at Society for Vascular Surgery during the middle of my first semester as a freshman. Not only was I beginning to experience my life as an undergraduate student, I was also faced with understanding the principals and responsibilities that came with being an employee. Unfortunately, I did not take the correct approach with balancing school and work. For some time, I was simply juggling them both with the hope that things would just get better on their own but they did not. After having reached a point where my grades were dropping and my performance at work was demonstrating some concern to my manager and coworkers I knew things had to change.
I knew that the only way to excel in both school and work was to find ways in which I could effectively balance different aspects between school and work. Through the upcoming months I tried different approaches until I found the correct one which lead me to coming up with 4 basic rules that help create an effective balance:
1. Create a realistic schedule between school and work
School is priority, so it’s important to create your work schedule around school schedule but you need to make sure that the hours you put for work are going to effective. If you can only work weekends and possibly Friday then that is great because school won’t necessarily interfere during those days. But if you work during the week only like I did, then you need to make sure to take into consideration different aspects like the commute from school to work, or how late can you stay at work in order to still give you time to complete any assignment for the next day. In my case I would always chose all the morning classes and would work in the afternoon. My commute was about 30 minutes so, if my class ended at 12pm I would schedule to be at work at 1pm. By doing so I had 30 extra minutes incase class took longer one day or there was traffic and this allowed me to always be to work on time.
2. Stay Organized
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The best tool that I used to stay organized was OneNote. OneNote is accessible to all Roosevelt students for free with the use of your school email. With the use of this source you are able to create different journals and tabs for that journal that helped you stay organized. For example, I had a journal for each class that I was taking. Within that journal I had different tabs like assignments, notes, discussions etc. In the assignment tab, I had all the assignments that I would be completing that semester with due dates that I would set for myself based on my work schedule and when the assignment was actually due. In the additional tabs, I made sure to take as much notes as possible and keep everything organized so I could find the information quickly when needed. In addition, I had a work journal in which I kept my schedule, any new assignments, my deadlines, my notes, etc. Everything that I needed to complete in both school and work was organized using this tool which allowed me to complete all tasks effectively.
3. Create an agenda for the week
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By creating an agenda for the week, this allows you to stay on top of everything and make sure the work gets done within a right amount of time. For example, I would look at the assignments that I needed to complete during a certain week for both school and work and scheduled different times within each day to make sure I either finished the assignment or get a head start. With creating the agenda, I had a set process to follow which allowed me to not be juggling things around and get everything done by the day of the due date.
4. Stay Motivated and Think Positive
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The most important thing that I found was to stay motivated. If I did not have motivation I was not going to get things done. Its extremely difficult to balance both school and work but everyone needs to think positivity and attempt to find a way to do it even if it means changing your process 20 times. Positivity and motivation is key in being able to accomplish your goals.
Now, these rules might not apply to everyone but it’s a good way to start thinking of what rules could work for you in the process of staying balanced. There will be a point where things get difficult but that does not mean you need to give up in school or work. You simply need to stay focused, motivated and positive in achieving your goals and getting the work done.