Being a college student obviously brings a variety of obligations: an enormous amount of school-work, extracurricular activities, social interaction. However, for students who are working a job on top of everything else, these pressures often feel even more unbearable. While your friends are going out to dinner or studying at the library, you're stuck at your desk job, probably making less money than you deserve.
Thankfully, there are quite a few students who understand the struggle, as more than seventy percent of undergraduates work a job. Just because there's a lot of us, though, that doesn't make the situation any easier. There are a lot of obstacles that working college students face, whether you're working on or off campus.
1. You're Almost Always Tired
This is a pretty common feeling among most college students, but having to work a job can sometimes steal the few, precious hours of sleep you can get.
2. You Have to Deal with Rude People on the Daily
This could be a customer or even a fellow employee, but I find that people are usually more aggressive towards student employees. We're easy targets: young and perhaps unexperienced in the workforce, but we're actually people too.
3. Your Friends Think You Can Afford Anything
Whenever I mention that I have a job, people assume that I'm rolling in cash. Unfortunately, minimum wage doesn't quite allow for that to become a reality. I'm still a broke college student, just like everyone else.
4. You Have to Work Bad Hours
Since you're in class during the day, you usually can only work in the mornings or at night. While your friends are sound-asleep or having fun, you're working.
5. You Have to Sneak Homework on the Job
If most of your free time is spent working, you might not have a lot of time to complete the massive amounts of schoolwork you have to do. Especially if you have an exam coming up, you're probably using any free second on the job to whip out some flashcards.
6. You Have to Be Creative With Meals
Coffee quickly becomes a meal replacer when you have ten minutes between the start of your shift and the end of your class. Or, you literally have to swallow a burrito whole.
7. Your Weekends Are Never Relaxing
Instead of joining your friends who are going to parties or getting some quality de-stressing time, you're clocking in for a Saturday shift that no one else wants.
8. You Have an Excuse if You Don't Want to Go Somewhere
Even though you're probably forced to miss a lot of fun events, you can also use this obligation to your advantage. Sorry I can't go to your one-woman adaptation of an obscure show, I have to work!
Having a job and being a student sometimes sucks, but at least you are becoming more prepared for life after college by learning about the workforce, and maybe even making some valuable connections for the future.
Plus, your iced coffee can always comfort you.
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