I'm a little nervous about maintaining balance in my life. Balance is probably one of the most important things in my life, without it I'm a miserable person. I've learned that too much time on one activity and my brain craves a break.
So how am I going to maintain balance while working full-time and going to school part-time? Right now I'm considering only taking two courses my first semester to ease myself into it, but at the same time I like to get things done and would love to only take two courses my last semester.
What do you think? For those of you who are currently working full-time and going to school part-time how do you do it? For those who did so in the past, do you any have advice?
6 comments:
I'm currently working full time and going to school part time, and to be honest, two classes per semester is all I can manage and keep any kind of balance in my life. Like you, I figured I'd start off slow, ease into it, then pick up speed and finish early. No way.
The program is advertised as 1-2 years, even at part time, but it will take me 2 1/2 years to finish. That's ok. I've managed to pull in straight As, which is important to me (I'm trying to keep a merit scholarship as well as tuition reimbursement from my job). I have time to stay on top of the assignments (you know how they say college is nothing like high school? Yeah, grad school is nothing like undergrad--100 pages for a reading assignment is NOTHING). I have time to keep my apartment clean and go grocery shopping. I can still pull my weight at work. I have time to spend with my boyfriend and time to participate in my dance company, which helps keep me sane. I'm busy, yes, but I do manage to squeeze all these things in.
If I added a third class, at least one of those things would go out the window, and probably more. I recommend starting with two classes a semester, but not pressuring yourself to do more than that if it turns out you can't.
I'm also working full-time, taking one class (the very last one), and applying for jobs in my field (as much, if not more work than the class!) I agree with Little Miss Moneybags that taking more than two classes will be better for preserving the balance in life. (All the schools I've been at consider 3+ classes to be full-time.)
I find that if I schedule school work for a few hours most evenings and keep on top of it consistently it's easier to manage than if I try and squeeze things into less days. Make sure you take a day off of everything every now and again.
Congratulations and Good Luck!!
I don't have any advice as I only ever worked part time while in school, but I wish you lots of luck. I'm having trouble with balance and all I really need to juggle is work, home and blog. School would be too much!
My advice is to start off slowly. I started by only taking one and gradually built up my course load when I thought I could handle it. Last semester I took 3 (which is a full-time course load at my school) and that was definitely too much. It will take longer, but if balance is a priority, it's what I would do.
I was willign to give up some balance and drive myself crazy to finish faster. So think about whether that might be worth it for you!
If anyone has good balancing tips, I would love to learn some also. I work part time and go to school full time ( 5 classes) and somedays I'm so overwhelmed all at trying to make my life better while getting an education. I'm glad you wrote this so I'm not the only one trying to figure things out. :)
Serendipity
I worked full-time and went to both undergrad and law school part-time. My life was work/school/study. That's it. I did have a personal life and folks were understanding about my schedule. My boyfriend during law school was used to me showing up at his house on weekends with a basket of dirty laundry and a backpack full of books. Thinking back on it, I have to laugh - back then, doing laundry and studying at his house was a weekend away; now it's my regular life, I just don't go anywhere.
Balance comes with prioritization. Know what your plan is and try to stick to it as best you can, but always make time for a break.
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