Solutions for working students

This is for adult students who are working/employed/having families while juggling with their studies. WHAT PROBLEMS ARE YOU FACING? How can you want them to be solved? Lets share

Reply 1

Stormgrad

I'm honestly shattered all of the time between study and work. I do 31 hours a week in care across two 11 hour days and one 9 hour day plus 20 hours independent study and 14 hours contact time. That's before travel as i don't drive ao all this is more time consuming as I rely on public transport. In addition to this I'm now providing care for my mother until I move for uni or social services produce a care plan (I already work in care)

The solution is just making it to september my move away to uni, quitting my job and this town and making a fresh start somewhere new.

Needed a rant and this was the perfect space for it

Reply 2

LJMUStudentReps

Official Rep

Hi everyone, this is such a great idea for a thread!

I’m a mature student (though without family responsibilities) currently in my fourth year. One thing I found really helpful was experimenting with how many hours I could realistically work while studying. During Semester 1, before the workload picks up after Christmas, I figured out that about 25 hours of work per week was my upper limit. That said, I’m lucky in that my course doesn’t have heavy contact hours or lab requirements.

One challenge I ran into early on was scheduling. Most universities don’t release your timetable until after enrolment, which makes planning tricky. What helped me was reaching out to the department in advance to get a sense of typical contact hours from previous years and whether lectures were usually scheduled in the mornings, afternoons or evenings. For any new working or mature students, I’d definitely recommend doing the same if you can. It gives you a head start in planning your work and life around study.

Megan (LJMU Rep)

Reply 3

Tw1x

The main issue I have continuously had is my job. I previously did an access course full time, 13 years ago and still worked full time and found it nowhere near as demanding as I have done this year, even though I am only studying part time. Unfortunately my job is not the sort you can just leave at the door and forget about on your days, evenings, weekends off. I must admit, I have struggled immensely and, at one point, failed to submit an assignment which left me feeling extremely down and depressed and a failure. I try timetable and plan as much as possible but some days at work are just so overwhelming it is physically impossible to continuing studying afterwards