Jessica Helligso's fist essay

A Different Kind of Student

 Being a modern day college student is very demanding and many people think that when you are a full time student, school should be considered your job. But what people don’t take into account is that not all college students are 18-24 year olds. Some are quite a bit older and have a mortgage and three kids to support. Having school be considered your job is not always an option and working full time is a necessary. Attending community college is a good way to get an education for a lot cheaper. But not everyone has thousands of dollars lying around to attend community college. It is important that educators are aware that not everyone in their class is just a student. Students who juggle work and school appreciate their time in class more and become better at time management.

Full time students who also work value their time in class. Most of the time if you work a full time job and want to attend school one would schedule their classes around their work schedule; sometimes leaving very small gaps of time between the time their classes get out and the time they need to be at work. This leaves no time to get a question answered after class by the teacher. This makes their class time precious. Students who also hold jobs appreciate the time in class more because they don’t have bunches of time to study the information learned in class if they don’t understand it. They need to get the most from class time in order to be successful in school. This is something that a student who only goes to school could not understand because they have more time to focus on school work outside of class.

Time is a precious thing. You can never have too much time. Being able to manage your time is a valuable skill that is very hard for some people to master.  When one is busy with work, school, and life in general mastering time is essential. Students who have to hold a job along with school become better at time management. It is a sink or swim mentality when you are juggling school and work. Either you learn to manage your time and get your homework done or you don’t get your work done and you fail the class. But students who attend school and do not work have more free time to get their work done. This can be a problem because they can say “oh I’ll do it tomorrow” and they will never choose which tomorrow they will finally get it done on. This can lead to bad habits when it comes to managing time. Having very little free time can be a very quick teacher of time management.

Students who only go to school and don’t work could argue that they work just as hard as those to also work full time and attend school. They get the same homework and assignments. This may be true but they may not have a thousand things racing through their head while doing these things. Students who work and attend school have to put forth a little more effort; that extra little push to achieve the same thing that a student who only attends school achieves.

From personal experience, I can say balancing school and work can be hard. There are defiantly nights that I get off work at ten and still have hours of homework to do and then get up at seven the next day. So always try and remember next time you complain about having no time to do homework, that, there is someone else in your class working full time and trying to finish that same assignment with even less time than yourself to complete it.