Balancing Work and Studies

My cousin is currently working a full time job and going back to school for some retraining after losing her job in an industry heavily impacted by the recession.  Watching her struggle with keeping both her job performance and her studies from flagging, prompted me to look online for some ideas from others on how to balance work and studies.  I will share with you what I recently shared with her.  Here are some pretty common strategies for work/study balance that I encountered among the experiences of others posted online. 1) Be Organized –Whether you prefer an oldschool notepad, a traditional day planner or a fancy new PDA, it is critical to keep track of your obligations to both job and school. 2) Take an Incremental Approach – Don’t begin by trying to handle overtime at work and a full course load.  Start out with a little less and see how you’re able to handle the load.  If you have the bandwidth you can add more work hours or credits to your course load. 3) Balance the Difficulty of Your Classes – Select your classes wisely each semester.  Mix some harder classes with some easier ones and you’ll find working and studying to be more sustainable.  Taking all the tough classes together at the same time can lead to burnout! 4) Transcript Management – Keep on top of your credits.  Especially if you’re attending different schools in pursuit of your educational goals.  Even some credits you may have earned 10 years ago may still be transferable. And if you’re currently a student of Allen School Online, then you’re on the right track because you’re already doing the last frequently mentioned strategy: 5) Consider Online Schools – The freedom and flexibility of taking online courses can really help out if you are working full time, taking care of children or both.