So you want to work a full time job while you’re in school? Great! The benefits of doing so are endless. You always have energy, the money is just overflowing, you have plenty of spare time to be with friends, you’ll sleep so much you won’t want to anymore, and you will never, ever hate it!

You’ll also become a master of sarcasm.

Let’s face it, with tuition costs going up, cost of living not going down, and the ever-looming monstrous face of adulthood bills breathing its hot and rancid breath down your neck, you gotta work. A lot. And trust me, you’re not in a situation that thousands have not paved the way before you. But buckle up, because it’s not an easy ride. With a little perseverance, a lot of the caffeine-filled drink of your choice, and several mental breakdowns with friends, you’ll be on your way to a successful work-life balance in no time!

Let’s start with the beginning, when you start your job and school. After summer ends and you’re faced with the beginning of the semester, there are a few things to remember. First of all, you need to be prepared - like, overly prepared. I am not an exceedingly organized person, and trust me, procrastinating is on my resume. However, with this exciting venture ahead of you, you need to drop your bad habits, and the sooner the better. Don’t use a planner? You better learn to. Writing in a planner can be the best way to sort through exactly what you have to do by when, and trust me, when you have five retail shifts that vary each week and fall sometimes before class, sometimes after, and you have seven assignments due before next week, you’re going to want to be able to look at something and mark it off. Trust me. And that summer mentality where you just want to sit by the pool while there is warmth left, and you can do that paper later after your fourth eight-hour shift this week? Kill that, you poor sweet soul. The only person who wants to do something right now instead of later less than you is you in five days.

So you’ve gotten through the beginning. I’m proud of you. Now you're halfway through the semester. You’re surviving, maybe not thriving but you’re alive. You’ve gotten a rhythm down to where your classes and work coexist in an almost completely separate, yet manageable way. The next step is to save. Everyone knows their own financial mind, but if you’ve never really worked full-time before, you’ll learn quickly that you’ll make a good amount of money, enough at least to cover a lot of what you need and have some left over. Now, as much as I am all for binge-shopping every now and then, you have to consider future-you. Is future-you going to be cool when your whatever blows in your car and it’s going to cost three hundred dollars of your sweat- and blood-earned money? Nope. Future you is not going to be cool with that. So help future you out, and put some into a savings or separate account. I find it easiest to try and put back ten percent of each paycheck, just for emergency.

As much as the above things are massively important, this one is possibly the most dire, mandatory thing you need to be aware of when trying to balance both work and school. It is the one thing that will keep you sane and keep you going. You have to give yourself some time, and I mean in any way that you see fit. You’re going to be answering to literally anyone but yourself for about six months straight, and you’ll get so used to it, you’ll give everyone pieces of yourself until there is nothing left to give. Yes, you’ll say, I’ll cover that shift. I’ll help you with that assignment.

But as nice as I'm sure you are, you have got to take a day every once in a while and just do you. Want to go out with friends? You go girl. Want to sit inside and play video games for fourteen hours straight? Dude, yes. It may seem obvious - of course you want to do the things you want to do - but inside the vacuum that is full-time work and fifteen credit-hours, it’s easy to forget to do things like hangout with your friends or veg out for a day. So, please, remember to give yourself some time, too.

So now, go forth, young dreamers, and tackle that retail job. Deal with those customers that are just wonderful and always right! Go to class with Monster in hand and will all but broken. With any luck, you might just survive this, and if you do it right, you’ll be better for it, to boot.