Hi guys.. just thought I'd throw this one out to the community..
I work fulltime/ parttime (animator/modeller) and also goto university....
(I got the job after I started uni about a year ago)
what would you do?
(a) quit uni and work fulltime?
(b) reduce subjects at uni to do more hours at work?
(c) keep at uni fulltime and maintain parttime at work?
I just wanna know what people feel about study and work and what you would do
cheerssssss
Depends on which you find more important.
A few questions to ask yourself:
Am I in a financial position to quit work?
Do I like the work?
Will the work lead me to better places than the course?
Can I do part time study?
Does my workplace have flexible hours so I can do both?
Finally I'd ask myself, were do I want to be in the next few years and which will get me to my goals the quickest and with the most useful skills?
Not really a question others can answer unfortunately, you just have to weigh up the pros and cons of each and go with your gut in the end.
Hope that helps, probably not. [:P]
Good luck.
I have just finished a very intensive year long (no holidays) course.
I sent myself back to school to enhance my existing knowledge. I also run my own audio consultancy and have sometimes 4-5 projects per month on top of school work AND a baby since January.
It was tough to balance it all, but I did it, and glad I did!
To my credit I completed projects on time and in budget and also still maintained a %90 grade average.
So as Malus says it really depends on you and what you think you can do.
I work fulltime as a graphics programmer, and study part-time at uni.
When I went back to study I thought it was going to be really hard balancing the two. It's not easy, but if you enjoy your work and you enjoy your study then its not so bad. Like groovyone, the larger workload hasn't hindered my performance at work or uni.
The only real problem balancing work and uni is timetabling. Most unis don't offer many courses outside office hours and most employers aren't willing to let you leave for several hours in the middle of the day to attend a lecture. More unis are beginning to offer courses externally/online which makes things a lot easier.
Oh yeah, forgot my main point:
If you consider professional experience more beneficial, then work full-time, and make uni your secondary priority. However, if you want to get uni over and done with (part-time study can take a while...), then concentrate on uni and reduce your hours at work.
You need to decide which is more important to your future/career.
When I went to the AIE, I went there full time (20 hours), and I worked part time (24 hours a week). We didn't really have the option of doing part time studying, so work had to be modified to suit my schooling needs. If I would have been at Uni, I still would have just gone to work part time. I would rather put as much time into a course to get that out of the road asap. Plus it was nice to use the job as a break from school as opposed to the other way around.
If you really enjoy your job though, then you may want to cull uni hours in favour of the job.