Work AND School...

You probably know a few stigmas associated with college kids and how they pay for school.

The first:
 -the student who works their tail off at two or three crappy jobs, works nights and weekends, and barely catches enough sleep let alone study as much as they should.

The second:
 -their parents pay their tuition, give them a car, pay their rent, bills, and the student does not have to work any jobs, which ultimately frees up their time to concentrate on their studies.


So which one are you? I've known one person that was lucky enough to be in the second situation (ironically he is my fiance) while I am definitely the first student described.

I work at a local mall serving concessions on Fridays (12-9p), Saturdays (3:30-9p), and Sundays (11-6p) and I also work in a local nightclub (not a strip club I promise lol) in Ybor City as a VIP bottle waitress on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays (9p-4a). Luckily I have been receiving federal Pell grants among some other institutional scholarships to pay for nearly all of my community college tuition, textbooks, and other related expenses up until now.  I'm still awaiting this academic year's verdict (i.e. overall amount of financial aid I will receive) and sweating like crazy until I find out.

However now that I am transferring to my local university, tuition costs are almost three times as much, and my financial aid will start to decrease as my credit hours increase. Needless to say I'm pretty stressed. Working like a dog in customer service is frustrating as all hell because I hate dealing with people's crappy attitudes. Granted not all people are rude, but a good portion of them are.

So what is the purpose of this post? Many things on top of me ranting because as I type this I'm sitting in the mall fuming from some customer's lack of respect. It's difficult if you are the first type of student because there are so many other things on your mind that you need to do, and frankly dealing with some stranger's rudeness makes everything seem so much more difficult. It makes you feel like your job sucks and your stuck in it because how else will you pay for school?

MY MISTAKE: Not saving money from my meager paychecks to help myself work less later on when the semester starts to lessen stress caused by the decreased amount of available time and sleep, and the increase of stranger's attitude problems.

MY ADVICE: Save your money, and work as much as possible during academic breaks. Birthday money? Save it. Textbook buyback money? Save it. Yes it's fun to go out and spend an exorbitant amount of cash to make yourself feel good (or is that just me?) but dang it will feel so much better saving that money instead for when you really need it, and not have to work as much as I currently do.

*The time now is 8:30pm and I have to close up the kiosk (job #1) early and risk our business getting fined for a "lease violation," and rush over to Ybor (job #2) to deal with drunk people. At least the club is more laid back and chill than the mall.. no offense to family people but dang Westfield Mgmt is ridiculous when kissing their customer's you-know-whats.

Please excuse this post, it is definitely a rant. But hopefully out of my frustration you will see that saving money is pertinent not just in college, but throughout life. People that work less have more time to concentrate on getting A's (and fun things), while people who work more vent and complain about their days at work, and ultimately struggle to pass their classes with good grades (because if they don't, guess what? It will cost more!). LOL true story.