By Nick Cook | Web Editor
Some students need to work multiple jobs to be able to afford college, rent and other necessities. While it is necessary to have these jobs to not go into debt, what is the mental and physical cost of working multiple jobs while going to college full time? Most days, it is a struggle, but it is a necessary one that is tolerated.
I wake up every day at 5:20 a.m. to let my body wake up, and I sit on my phone for a few minutes. Around 5:40 a.m., I start to get up, get dressed and make breakfast. I leave my apartment around 6:40 a.m. to ensure I get to work on time. I then work for three to five hours, depending on the day, before going back to my apartment to briefly change and eat a snack.
I then go back to campus for the rest of the day, alternating between going to classes and working at the Lariat. Monday and Tuesday are my worst days, and they really make me look forward to the rest of the week.
These days, I am not leaving campus until 7 p.m., only to have more homework waiting for me when I get home. While I am able to leave around 5 p.m. the rest of the week, it’s still not a lot of time to get homework done.
It takes a lot of mental strength to work multiple jobs and go to classes every day. Between waking up around 5 a.m. and going to sleep around 11 p.m., it begins to get hard to stay awake in class or to feel like doing anything. There are times I just take a few hours to relax, but then I feel like a failure for not doing my homework, and I get behind in my classes.
The weekends are when I try to get most of my homework done, so I can be mostly lazy during the week. However, being able to sleep in and take a mental break over the weekends means I don’t get as much done as I would normally like.
Physically, it is also a struggle. Only getting around six hours of sleep every night and then working for three to five hours every morning doing construction at Collins Hall is not easy. Construction in itself is tiring and time-consuming, but throw in another nine hours of classes and five hours of homework and studying, and your days start to drag on.
You get tired, and your legs start to hurt. You just want to go home and collapse into bed. Everything becomes a struggle as the week goes on.
The distance between classes and classrooms feels like it gets longer every day.
