Five Tips for the FT Professional & FT Student

For the first two and a half years of college I averaged 35 hours per week at work, in my office, running a business, while taking 12-14 credit hours at a time. Last semester I learned that combining that workload with upper-division courses is a recipe for burn-out and depression. In the end, I had to withdraw from two of my four classes at the last minute, and re-arrange my plans for the next two years to accommodate falling behind.

That was the bad news. The good news is that I have learned from my mistakes, and now you can as well. I followed advice from family, friends and the webernets in setting up this semester’s course and workload.

How’d I do it? By following these rules:

1. Don’t overload your schedule. Taking 12 credits to maintain loans or scholarships? Fine, do it. But only two get to be difficult courses. My tough classes are Calculus 251 and Physics 112 (and lab), both heavy on the logic and working out problems and doing tons of practice.
2. Balance out the hard stuff with something fun! An online religions course (counts as Upper Division Literature for my major req) and an UD UNI course to mentor fellow students are fun for me. These both require blocks of dedicated time, but the online one can be squeezed in with some flexibility each week, and they’re both really interesting, so doing the homework is a pleasure.
3. Create a work schedule and post it on your office door. Your co-workers will not remember your schedule, so it’s your job to make it easy for them to know when you’ll be there. This will make it easier for important meetings and events to be scheduled, and for others to plan when they want to talk to you about various projects.
4. Create your own schedule, and set hard deadlines for arrival and departure. This is meant more for work, because it’s so easy to stay “just one more minute” and end up working two hours into your study time. By planning your day (or even the whole week) ahead of time, you tend to work more efficiently. Quite simply, knowing you need to be out the door at 4:30 to review for next week’s exam ensures you spend less time chit-chatting by the water cooler and more time plowing through your work.
5. Plan to relax! It is very, very, VERY easy to spend the entire week in a work-school-homework-sleep grind. It’s even easier to lose your Saturday to “making up” time at work, squeezing in required family events and housecleaning. Give yourself at least two hours each week, entirely to yourself, to do something that is an enjoyable, non-stressful event. Read a book, go bike riding, play Halo or go out to the theater and see a movie. But do something for yourself.

The majority of resources online are aimed at full-time students, FT students with part time jobs, or part-time students with full-time jobs. Other than myself, I haven’t yet found a resource for those who do both work & school full-time, or even for student’s who’s part-time job is a real responisiblity with limited flexibility.

So, for part-time students, some more tips can be found here “Hacks for Part-Time Students” and on Helium’s Tips for Success As a Part-Time Student.