Ask a typical student to describe their day-to-day life and they’ll usually answer in one word: busy. Add a job on top of that, and you have a ridiculously packed schedule on your hands.

You know the drill. School, work, study, repeat. It’s the late-night and early morning routine that becomes our second nature. We’re not necessarily thriving, rather we’re just trying to stay afloat.

The pressures of rent, tuition and book costs are constantly reminding us why we need to increase our hours. Unfortunately for us, increasing our hours usually has an inverse effect on our GPA. This is the catch twenty-two of working a full-time job in college. 

It’s an age-old dilemma. We must work to fund our education and we must go to school to get better work. The desire to learn is met with steep financial requirements that a lot of us can only afford with a 40-hour work schedule.

This is the price of independence. A price, in my opinion, is far too high. In all reality, working and going to school full-time is an impossible task to do correctly. 

To put it on paper, a student like me faces a 92.5-hour week for 9 months a year. That includes a 40-hour workweek, a 15-hour school schedule, and the recommended 2-3 hours of outside study and homework time per class.

This is equivalent to fulfilling an 8 am-9 pm daily schedule with no breaks, seven days a week, and for nine months straight. For 13 hours a day, we are supposed to be either working or going to school. This is not only unreasonable but completely unfeasible.

A week or two of this is enough to make anybody go insane. The only possible way to make this work is to create shortcuts in our schedule and cut corners where we can. 

The problem when we do this, however, is that we shortchange ourselves in our education. To survive, sometimes we have to skim the chapter to get the homework done on time. Or sometimes we may have to take an extra shift at work so we must skip the assignment entirely. This not only leaves us unprepared for the next chapter, but it creates a way of habit.

Students can become incredibly good at passing classes by minimum standards and abusing outside resources to pass a class is not all uncommon. While the student is ultimately the one to blame, a more accessible schedule would likely have prevented a lot of these bad practices in the first place.

There definitely something is wrong here. With each tuition hike, more and more students are forced to take on more hours. This is a tragedy because it doesn’t allow time for a proper education.

Every year, students graduate unprepared and unfit for the workforce. This is a feeling I share with even myself because as I end my time here I leave with a bittersweet feeling. There is a feeling of joy that I am graduating, but with a degree that I may not have put in the necessary hours to achieve. I did try my best, but I am worried I may not know as much as I should. This is a reality I know that many of us face.

I am not at all disappointed in my college experience, however. I worked hard, studied hard and played hard too. I am proud of my work ethic and the way I financed myself through university. But I would not want this for my little brother who will be next in line, and I would not want this for my children who may face tuition 100X that of today.

I wish, and hope, they will be luckier than me and will not have to take on the burden of this schedule. I hope that they have the necessary time and the work ethic for a more complete educational experience. I hope that they do not only survive but thrive through their four years on campus. I believe that every student should have that right.