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working class students: do you wonder how regular students still get stressed out?

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Zhengi said:
What about an engineering student with a job?
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From my experience, unless we are talking about some 5-10 hour a week deal, the working students do worse on average academically in the more rigorous programs. There are exceptions of course, but I didn't meet many science majors working 20-40 hours a week who had 90+ averages.

EDIT: At least in upper year science, it is not uncommon to have 25-30 hours a week of class including labs. Double that to account for assignments, readings and studying, and add another 10-30 hours a week if you are working on your thesis project. Not a ton of time left for working.
 
EatinOlives said:
*slap*

Nope, still doesn't.

If by "however they want" he means "work on 30-hour weekly homeworks, times however many classes you have", then it totally makes sense. Otherwise, no dice.
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No, he means everyone else does that and balances a job at the same time.

Its gonna be like natural selection when these lazy motherfuckers get to the real world after college.
 
My first year of college was at a private school, where only a handful of freshman worked jobs like me. I wasn't ever stressed out, but it was kind of, check that, really fucking annoying to have to work while everyone else just hung out every day, slept in on the weekends, etc. It made me feel really out of place, and I didn't go back for the second year. I can't tell in retrospect if that made me a better person or not.
 
kswiston said:
From my experience, unless we are talking about some 5-10 hour a week deal, the working students do worse on average academically in the more rigorous programs. There are exceptions of course, but I didn't meet many science majors working 20-40 hours a week who had 90+ averages.
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I worked 30 hours a week while getting a B.S Chem degree with a 3.6 GPA. Only downside was I didn't have time for independent research, also had absolutely no life.
 
Enter The 36 Chambers said:
No, he means everyone else does that and balances a job at the same time.

Its gonna be like natural selection when these lazy motherfuckers get to the real world after college.
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It conveniently ignores that different people are in different programs that demand a different amount of time and skill required.

Even if you compare two students in the same program one with a job and one without, and the one without falls behind and gets stressed that still speaks nothing of that particular person. It's pretty childish to call them "lazy fuckers don't know real world REAL TALK".
 
I sympathize with the OP as I'm in a similar predicament (working my way through school). That said, it was nailed on the head early on in this thread; life isn't fair. Some people were dealt better cards than others and you've just gotta role with what you got to make it through. Am I jealous of my friends who's parents pay for all their schooling? Hell yes. Does it make me bitter sometimes? Absolutely. Do I occasionally get pissed when they whine about their "crushing" load with one MAYBE two classes a day in some easy lib arts classes? Undoubtedly.
Nevertheless, I go through the day to day believing my hard work will pay off with a job I earned and an income of my own.
 
It's not as if those who don't work just sit around when classes are out and bum out all day long. I play baseball, am on student government, and volunteer every week doing tornado relief. The ignorance of the OP baffles me.

Oh, and I also have a job.
 
What's the big deal anyways? So what if I don't want to do menial work while attending college. I'd rather have debt in loans, that way when I do get a decent job in my career field it won't be nearly as difficult to pay back. Working some minimum wage job while taking on 6-7 courses a semester would be completely pointless when you compare the ratios of income/timeworked between a min wage job and a post college career.

That being said, I only work 1 or 2 days a week, just enough to pay for gas and food.
 
Seguin said:
I worked 30 hours a week while getting a B.S Chem degree with a 3.6 GPA. Only downside was I didn't have time for independent research, also had absolutely no life.
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Grad school is much better. You still have to put in an insane amount of hours (I worked 8-12 hours a day, seven days a week for 8 straight months during part of mine), but at least you get paid and can get tuition waived in a lot of programs if you are a top student. Plus you spend all your time with people like yourself, and don't really have to worry about exams/studying if your are doing a research based M.Sc. I took 3 classes in 2 years, one was a field research course.

In Canada, scholarships and grants are tax-free, so I was making more a grad student than I am now :/ Top federal scholarships are in the $30-35k range, plus you could TA for an extra $15k a year at my school. All tax free.
 
Everybody has there own breaking points, I don't judge anybody anymore after I went through my breakdown as no matter the situation no body is better then anybody else.
 
Yaboosh said:
I was a working student and got out of college with zero debt.

Many non-working students didn't work because they had loans.

Sucks for them.
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I wish I earned enough to pay my own tuition. My rent is paid on a paycheck-to-paycheck basis, and I'm still going to graduate in a mountain of student debt.
 
I think the OP assumes that everyone is essentially physically and mentally the same and can pull themselves up by their bootstraps. I am not working now and going to college full-time. I also get stressed. But I suffer from chronic illness and depression as well. Am I still allowed to get stressed? Or is that something reserved for the working-class students? Seriously, the OP really rubbed me the wrong way with his generalizing.
 
Just because someone has it worse than you it doesn't mean you can't be tired or complain or whatever.

I wish I could do what I want with my supposed free time.
EDIT:
Enter The 36 Chambers said:
No, he means everyone else does that and balances a job at the same time.

Its gonna be like natural selection when these lazy motherfuckers get to the real world after college.
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So if you don't work while studying you're a lazy motherfucker? Ridiculous.
 
i know how it feels op. sometimes it bothers me a lot and i have to go to the gym to relieve it off. i know ranting on here wouldn't help much for me. =(
 
I'm taking 19/20 credit hours every semester until I graduate, so as much as I'd love to work through college it probably wouldn't be good for my psyche
 
SpectreFire said:
OP comes off as very presumptuous. Who are you to say that people who don't work and go to school don't have any stress and those who do are piled with it? People are stressed out in different ways, some people find having work to do therapeutic. I'm a not more stressed out not working and having to find a job while going to school than not. Some people who work take a lighter courseload, others who only go to school might take heavier courseloads which adds on tons of stress. School for the most part, is going to be a lot more stressful than work just due to the fact that it doesn't finish when you're done for the day. It follows you home, on weekends, it permeates your life, whereas work usually finishes when you clock out. I for one find school much more stressful overall than work.

This is a bad thread and rant and OP should feel bad.
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/thread

Life is just fucking stressful.
 
Razek said:
What in the world are you even getting on about?

-Some people handle stress differently than others. *GASP
-Some programs are much harder than others.
-School should always come first. If you have to miss a day of work because you need to study, do it. They fire you? Too bad. If you can't balance the both and it is hurting your academia, you need a different job then.
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This post is pretty naive.

-some programs are harder than others. And? I'm sure there are full time workers in the hardest of courses as well as those who benefit from only having to focus on coursework

-School should come first. I'm not even certain what you mean by this. I can't just skip work. I don't flip burgers, I am not so easily replaced if I'm not at work and calling out frequently would be grounds for termination. I can't simply say F U, I got to take care of school first. I'd love to, but if I don't work I can't afford to go to school, or eat or pay my bills or have somewhere to stay.


I for a brief period was 'just' a full time student and it was astoundingly less stressful than being a full time worker and student. Others have it worse, far worse in fact, but the worker/non-worker is a pretty common dichotomy on campus.


To respond to the OP: of course it's a bit easier but full time coursework can be and usually is still plenty stressful.
 
I'm currently in Uni taking a full course load and working part-time. It can be stressful, but luckily I work medium to low enough hours and my job is very close to home.
 
The Boat said:
Just because someone has it worse than you it doesn't mean you can't be tired or complain or whatever.

I wish I could do what I want with my supposed free time.
EDIT:
So if you don't work while studying you're a lazy motherfucker? Ridiculous.
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Directed at the people making excuses and claiming they have it harder then people who are working to get themselves through school, while they do nothing.

I didnt mean that not working makes you lazy. My bad
 
I worked two jobs during my masters to just about make tuition. One was a cinema job and my bosses seemed to think 30 hour weeks was part time, the other was a laid back paid internship. I was fortunate that i got both cos without them i would not have been able to make tuition. That said i never went out on weekends and i did not revise as much as i wish. However i don't think i could work 1 job during my undergraduate. That shit would have driven me crazy unless it was something laid back where i could study whilst doing it. Both were science degrees.
 
I only worked for about 4 semesters during college. I also had a fairly easy major and never did more than 15 hours at a time , so when I didn't have a job, my days were basically DONE by 11 am or noon. And to top it off, I usually didn't have class on Fridays either.

Life was amazing at the time, but I was so spoiled that I'm finding it tough to adapt to the 8-5 life.
 
bangai-o said:
non-working students only need to wake up and spend some hours at school and then the rest of the day however they want. It kind of bewilders me how they still fall behind and become stressed out when they don't have a job that takes away the majority of that day.

I am assuming at least half of the students here also work. You dont have the opportunity to study because you are at work and you fall behind because you are at work. That is stress. I feel like I would be in heaven if all I had to do was go to class.

i guess this is a rant, but Im not mad. Overall, it is an observation of college inequality gaps. How does the working class student feel about receiving bad grades on occasion due to having a job while the non-working students gets honored due to having all that free time.
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Stop whinnying. Grow up.
 
I guess it all depends on the job. But for the most part if people go to school "full time" without a job and they spend the same amount of time on school as someone who works "full time" (40h/week) then they should do very well.
 
Ultima_5 said:
Stem students could say the same about liberal arts majors.
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I'm an accounting major so I don't know much about either a Liberal Arts degree or a stem degree, but if someone told me I had to choose between the two I would go for stem every time. I'm certain it would be more work and more difficult, but I'm not sure I could stand the sort of assignments that a liberal arts major would have to do. Give me problem-solving with hard figures any day of the week.
 
bangai-o said:
non-working students only need to wake up and spend some hours at school and then the rest of the day however they want. It kind of bewilders me how they still fall behind and become stressed out when they don't have a job that takes away the majority of that day.

I am assuming at least half of the students here also work. You dont have the opportunity to study because you are at work and you fall behind because you are at work. That is stress. I feel like I would be in heaven if all I had to do was go to class.

i guess this is a rant, but Im not mad. Overall, it is an observation of college inequality gaps. How does the working class student feel about receiving bad grades on occasion due to having a job while the non-working students gets honored due to having all that free time.
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Sort of off-topic but I personally felt like I was screwed over by being lower middle class. I was "well off" enough to not get much of any financial aid, but not "well off" enough for college not to be completely unaffordable to my parents. I'm incredibly jealous of peers who seemingly make a profit on financial aid alone... the fact that some of my friends have enough money left over after education and housing fees to pay for their alcohol money for the quarter is so infuriating.
 
SpectreFire said:
OP comes off as very presumptuous. Who are you to say that people who don't work and go to school don't have any stress and those who do are piled with it? People are stressed out in different ways, some people find having work to do therapeutic. I'm a not more stressed out not working and having to find a job while going to school than not. Some people who work take a lighter courseload, others who only go to school might take heavier courseloads which adds on tons of stress. School for the most part, is going to be a lot more stressful than work just due to the fact that it doesn't finish when you're done for the day. It follows you home, on weekends, it permeates your life, whereas work usually finishes when you clock out. I for one find school much more stressful overall than work.

This is a bad thread and rant and OP should feel bad.
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This rant is worse than the OP's. You basically did exactly what you criticized the OP of doing. Who is to say indeed.
 
Being a Full Time (OT more likely) worker and Full-Time student I can get very stressed out at times.

My typical day:

Wake up at 5:45 a.m.
The usual getting ready for the day (shower, etc)
Eat a breakfast of some sort.
Leave by 6:45 to give myself time in case of unforeseen circumstances, to get to class by 8. (I go to school in the same city I work in as its easier since my classes last from 8-12:30 daily. I work an hour away from home.)
In class from 8-12:30.
Use the time from 12:30-1 to get food and get to work by 1
Work from 1 to 10-12ish (usually 12ish)
Drive home and get here from 11-1 am depending on the time I leave.
Try to eat something since I've likely not eaten enough for the day at all, if I ate anything besides the small breakfast and lunch.
Do homework/assignments
Go to sleep anywhere from 12-2 am depending on how much work there is.
rinse/repeat.

Thats Monday-Friday. I tend to catch up on things like laundry and housework on the weekend.

I do have some free time at work from time to time, and i try to do homework then and I also browse GAF a little bit. I tend to leave it open at work and glance at it every so often.
 
Stress is relative.

DBLT
 
bangai-o said:
non-working students only need to wake up and spend some hours at school and then the rest of the day however they want. It kind of bewilders me how they still fall behind and become stressed out when they don't have a job that takes away the majority of that day.
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Doesn't bewilder me at all. A working student has limited time and must become an expert at time management in order to just survive, let alone be successful. Students without jobs don't have that contraint pushing them so they may waste a lot of time that a working student would otherwise not have the luxury of wasting.

Same thing goes for students with kids. When your time is constrained you look to maximize the utility of your time. You can take the same logic and apply it to people with money constraints. If you don't have, you have to make it stretch and you're likely to be exceptionally more efficient than those that can waste.
 
SpectreFire said:
OP comes off as very presumptuous. Who are you to say that people who don't work and go to school don't have any stress and those who do are piled with it? People are stressed out in different ways, some people find having work to do therapeutic. I'm a not more stressed out not working and having to find a job while going to school than not. Some people who work take a lighter courseload, others who only go to school might take heavier courseloads which adds on tons of stress. School for the most part, is going to be a lot more stressful than work just due to the fact that it doesn't finish when you're done for the day. It follows you home, on weekends, it permeates your life, whereas work usually finishes when you clock out. I for one find school much more stressful overall than work.

This is a bad thread and rant and OP should feel bad.
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You keep talking about courseload like working students have no courseload. And lulz at work just ends when you clock out, maybe when you're minimum wage.
 
Zaraki_Kenpachi said:
You keep talking about courseload like working students have no courseload. And lulz at work just ends when you clock out, maybe when you're minimum wage.
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From my experience it seems that most undergraduate students are working at minimal wage jobs (or close to) though.
 
bangai-o said:
non-working students only need to wake up and spend some hours at school and then the rest of the day however they want. It kind of bewilders me how they still fall behind and become stressed out when they don't have a job that takes away the majority of that day.

I am assuming at least half of the students here also work. You dont have the opportunity to study because you are at work and you fall behind because you are at work. That is stress. I feel like I would be in heaven if all I had to do was go to class.

i guess this is a rant, but Im not mad. Overall, it is an observation of college inequality gaps. How does the working class student feel about receiving bad grades on occasion due to having a job while the non-working students gets honored due to having all that free time.
Click to expand...
no because i understand the mentality of a college student (having been one) is vastly different than that of a working class adult.

the only thing i can't figure out is how some classes don't have stricter pre-reqs. there's a bunch of dummies holding us back in my PHP class because they have like, zero computer skills.
 
Lot of ignorance/assumptions in the thread overall.

Different people are in different situations... it isn't cut and dry to the point in which if a person isn't doing something and/or is in a certain major that he/she won't get stressed out.
 
SugarDaddy said:
What's the big deal anyways? So what if I don't want to do menial work while attending college. I'd rather have debt in loans, that way when I do get a decent job in my career field it won't be nearly as difficult to pay back. Working some minimum wage job while taking on 6-7 courses a semester would be completely pointless when you compare the ratios of income/timeworked between a min wage job and a post college career.

That being said, I only work 1 or 2 days a week, just enough to pay for gas and food.
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FYI, for some people there isn't enough loans available to opt out of having to work.

Case in point, I entered college with a pretty sizable allotment of scholarships, but still wasn't enough to cover everything. The option was to take a rather predatory loan or to work through school, and those scholarships would obviously didn't have enough money guaranteed to the last few years, so work would eventually be a requirement (as my parents didn't make dick).

My time through college consisted of:

2 years of CS degree with 15-18 credits per semester + working 20-30 hours a week at a retail job for a few months and as a MS services tech for the rest of it.
2 years of a geology degree with 15-18 credits per semester + working 20 hours for my Geology department during the week helping with intro students + 15-20 hours a week of landscaping/snow removal (depending on season).

At the same time I spent my summers all four years doing the following: Landscaping 60 hours a week the first two, asbestos abatement for 60 hours a week + 20 hours of landscaping over the weekends for the next two years. Had to stack up extra work the last two years in order to meet rising tuition v. decreasing scholarship funds remaining.

I don't begrudge anyone who didn't have to work through college. I'm sure it made the experience a lot more enjoyable, and if I had the option I probably would have taken it. But I did build one hell of a work ethic, and was a key part of my getting the job in my degree related field that I have today. It also made me far more capable within my given field, as most professionals with degrees don't know the first thing about doing real work and come up with asinine and impractical plans that require others to bail them out, and my jobs always come in under time and under budget.
 
I have to admit I do roll my eyes when they bitch about workload and time. I would've killed to not have to work during my undergrad. I could've gotten over that 3.5 hump and taken the robotics team to the finals.....Or not. Odds are I would have been 20 times lazier and whinier about work than I am now. non-working students got it so easy. I'm jelly. I'm totally not having a full time job when i go for a PhD.
 
ronito said:
God I hated those people.

I worked through college AND was a performance major meaning I'd have to practice 4-6 hours a day.

And then to see football players getting tutors because they worked out for an hour and had 2 hour practice every other day and other people freaking out because they had a 5 page paper due in a week, I don't know how those people ever dealt with the real world.
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My time commitments for baseball in university were in the range of 30-35 hours per week (including weekends) in the fall and 50-70 hours per week (including travel time and weekends) in the spring. I missed a three week chunk every February and most Monday and Friday classes in the spring for 4 years. Most profs were very decent about rescheduling missed midterms/exams but you were out of luck for missed lectures. Exam time in the spring was terrible because it was right in the heart of our schedule. Studying for an organic chemistry final in a cramped bus making an overnight trip through the Cascade mountains...I miss a lot of things from that time in my life but I sure don't miss that.
 
Double B.Comm major while working 40h/week. Most of my worry and stress is trying to find time to keep the girlfriend happy >_>
 
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