Happier Abroad Forum Community

Lately I have been finding it very hard to study and get ready for classes after work. For a bit of background, I will say that I have an outdoor physical job, at which I work a little over forty hours a week. The job itself is all right and I have been there for several years, but

1) Time Management On some days it is really difficult to come home, undress, shower and get dressed in addition to fixing a meal and getting ready for a class or two in the evening. Also, I virtually have very little time to do anything outside of working, house work, studying and even that I do not quite have enough time for. I am taking a full load of classes in college, and some of them are challenging with time-consuming assignments that I absolutely do not have time to do unless I drop everything and stay up well into the night or do nothing but do schoolwork on the weekends with no chill-time in between, which would burn anyone out.

2) Job Prospects My job has very little to do with what I am studying in college, which is mostly Writing and Literature with some Gen. Ed. courses in between. It would be hard to find any kind of a job based on the things I am taking now, but I have been out there in the job market and the things associated with it in my area are pretty grim. I live where there is a lot of transplants with education, and even the basic clerical jobs are taken up by people with education.

Solutions
Now, leaving my current job would put me out of some serious cash that I need for monthly expenses. Dropping several classes would feel like a complete and total defeat in my heart, and if I were to start looking for something else it would take up much effort and time, so I would not be able to concentrate on studies a whole lot.
I would like some ideas on what kind of a decent, respectable, part-time job would be suitable for a full-time college student. Please, do not tell me that restaurants, burger joints and pizza delivery shops are always hiring, since I am well into my twenties and a job like that would only humiliate me and destroy what is left of my self-esteem. Please do not suggest online money-making schemes and doing work and advertisements online. No online job would ever be taken seriously if put on a resume.
I am a little afraid of just taking out student loans and living off my VA pension through college, because everyone knows how much a Bachelor's degree could rack up in student loan debt. Besides, having an employment or unemployment gap on your resume is not good and always raises questions at interviews. Employers just do not like the idea of someone "taking a break" or "making money some alternative way," and neither do I if compared to having a regular part-time job.

Is there any good way to juggle work, school and life without doing it miserably and painstakingly like I am now?

Any word of advice would help...

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Thanks for the sound advice.

I see how having regular part-time college student type of jobs is not quite the answer, because they suck and teach you nothing. And at the same time, this full-time forty-hour-a-week blue-collar job is too much too handle and has little to do with my degree.

I just need something else entirely to augment my income, so to speak...

If you're in year one of college I can understand the need to change, but you said you were well not your twenties, so I would guess you might be close to finishing that degree. For this reason I say tough it out. Finish that degree. Once you have it, think og the things you can do, such as traveling and teaching abroad. Who cares about how useful your degree is where you are?

If you are studying literature and writing, and this is "your thing", then you should be writing, even if writing articles for $0.02 per word. "Write without pay until someone offers pay..." as Mark Twain said. Write spec articles for major publications. Yes, you will get a million rejections. That's how it's done. Write articles about hats and boots for 2 cents per word, then 3, then 4, then 5. You could, conceivably, support yourself by writing.

You say you can't juggle work, school and life, so drop life, if you know it's only for a year or so. Yes, that sucks. Many successful people have made great sacrifices, knowing it was for a limited time, to reach their goals. If you see the possibility, you can get that degree. Then you could go teach abroad, in another country, with light working hours and lots of time to write.

My wife and I had a food vending business when I was in grad school. It wasn't quite enough really, but kept us from going under, and we didn't work at it all the time, just certain events. Some people work that kind of thing all the time. We did an event at an arena where there were small business people. There are lots of things people can do to earn a living, selling clothes, pre-packaged food, etc. at flea markets for example. We've got a really big flea market that's more of a three day a week mall around here. Maybe you could find something like that.

The great thing about small businesses is that they are great resume fillers. If you have a small business where you sell something once a month and do that for three years, then you don't have to use your college studies to fill that time on your resume.

What do you need the degree for? These days, that's a really legit question. A degree doesn't guarantee a job or better pay. If you are the mechanical type, some of the trades pay as well or better than some degrees. Electricians and plumbers can make more than a lot of people with English degrees. If you are getting a degree in creative writing, you can write novels without a degree. If you want to teach English overseas, you probably need some kind of degree. I hear they are pressing for real estate agents to have to have degrees in some states. But there are a lot of jobs you can get without a degree, and if you don't have a plan to turn the degree into cash, why invest in it-- unless it's free, cheap, or you just want it for self-fulfillment?