In most situations, you have to work at least part-time and go to school to be able to afford it. For those of us that either already had a full-time job or need one to pay for school, you'll understand everything listed below.

1. You rarely sleep.

This sucks out loud. I overnight most nights I work and then come home in the morning too exhausted to do anything. Believe me, there’s plenty of things I’d rather do than sleep like read a book or perhaps write my novel finally, but it never happens. I either fall asleep immediately after getting home from work or I stay awake and get roughly four hours of sleep (and that’s on a good day).

2. You have no social life.

No matter how hard you try to balance school and work with going to social events or even just playing video games for an hour, you won’t have time. It sucks, but if you want good grades that’s just what ends up happening. I figured out that if I go out at least once every week during the school term (or semester, quarter, etc.), I might get behind at least one assignment. Granted, my school classes are eight weeks long with sometimes breaks in between (I said sometimes!). I try so hard to even be able to read a book or play a video game for at least one of my days off of work, but I’d have to work extra hard and get ahead to be able to do so.

3. It's school or work, there is no in between.

At my job, I’m required to do certain things in order to meet our companies goals (as many other companies have a similar program). Sometimes when I get behind or pull an all-nighter for school, I get behind in my work-homework. It sucks because I have to stay on top of EVERYTHING. If I don’t do the work for my job, I could lose my position in the company or solely be at fault for not making our goals. If I don’t stay on top of my homework, I won’t have good grades in order to graduate.

4. Even if your family says they understand, they never will.

My family has made a stink about me not visiting as often as I should (should being the key word here). After explaining my situation for ten minutes, they say they understand, but yet still go back to “I don’t understand why you can’t visit even for twenty minutes! That’s not a long time!” They are right, twenty minutes isn’t a long time, but when you factor in the fact that you work 8-10 hours a day four- five times out of the week, do at least 3 2-3 hour school assignments (these being the easy ones and you not prepping for a test or project) on those days you work or the two-three days you’re off, and still have to sleep for 7-8 hours. You really don’t have the time. Even if it is twenty minutes.

5. Your feeding schedule will be off; by a lot.

When you’re in front of any type of entertainment or electronic screen, you want to eat whatever snack doesn’t take more than five minutes to make. For most college students, this is either breakfast cereal or Ramen noodles. These are not healthy options, but what gets us through those long nights before a project is due. Because you’re eating every bad nutritional item in sight, your appetite will disappear for about ten minutes before reappearing. Any hot meal is like Thanksgiving dinner on Christmas morning.

6. When you get free time...

Any of your spare time in between cramming for tests or work is spent on eating real food and catching up on sleep. If you actually have any sort of spare time after cramming or work or eating or sleeping, I applaud you. Use it wisely. I say this with utmost importance. If you haven’t seen your family and they’ve begun to think you’re a cave dwelling creature, go visit them. Maybe your friends have some free time or you’d rather spend your time alone catching up on a book or writing the next John Green novel. Whatever your fancy, when you have free time, enjoy it and think of the rest of us cave dwelling creatures just trying to get by.