By Erika Zell
It’s official: when I walk across the stage this June, I’ll be graduating debt-free. No student loans, no over-extended credit cards, no appreciative hugs for my parents — I won’t owe a nickel to anybody, and it feels great.
I was imbued with a strong sense of fiscal conservatism early on, nurtured by a long line of stingy relatives. I grasped earlier than most the idea that student loans are not gifts, and that an arts degree is not a guarantee of financial security. While financial management can seem intimidating and complicated, it’s actually deceptively straightforward: you need to earn more money than you spend. You know by now that a university degree doesn’t come cheap, so this makes the equation even simpler: with increased expenses comes the need for increased income. Fellow students, my thesis is simple: work. Work long, work hard. My friends thought I was crazy juggling three-plus jobs all these long years, but with so many of them now staring down the barrel of tens of thousands of dollars in debt and pending unemployment, suddenly my plan doesn’t seem so outrageous after all.
The benefits of student employment also reach far beyond the purely monetary — yes, there were a few parties lost to long Saturday nights as a waitress, but there are crazy perks to being overemployed, too. My social circle expanded, not shrunk, as I was continually pushed out of my comfort zone, and seeing everything through the lens of school will severely limit the scope of your endeavours. Put more simply, post-secondary is a big, fluffy, shiny, bubble that will pop and throw you into the wild as soon as you graduate. Think of work experience as your survival skills — and there’s no time to learn like the present, baby.
In sum, working makes you a better person. Fact.
Not convinced? Check out my sage advice for busting these top five student-employment myths.
Myth #1: “I won’t have enough time to focus on my school work if I have a part-time job.”
Nice try. If you can’t spare a few hours a week to do something other than study you need a serious lesson in time management. (This is, incidentally, a major secondary benefit of working through school.) Have you ever heard the phrase, ‘If you need something done, get a busy person to do it?” It’s more than an adage; it’s a universal truth. The more you have on the go, the more you can miraculously manage, because you get better at using your time effectively. While some people are naturally predisposed to being schedule-busting overachievers, most truly effective people are made, not born, and this is a skill that will serve them for the rest of their lives. Your passion for homework is quite frankly depressing, and your single-minded focus is holding you back. Which leads me to my second point…
Myth #2: “Working is shitty and hard and not fun.”
You, young grasshopper, are the mayor of wrongtown. My work experiences have been hands down the most positive of my undergraduate career, and I’m not alone: 100 per cent of even the most cynical students can find a silver lining to terrible job situations. Maybe it was the friends you made to commiserate with along the way. Maybe it was the five per cent discount you got on shitty coffee once you finished your barista shift. Maybe it was the paid hours you spent watching cat videos during your downtime in a lame data entry position. What I’m saying is attitude is everything, and unless you get some, preferably of the positive variety, you can forget about work because your life is going to be shitty and hard and not fun. Luckily, there’s also an easy fix for this problem…
Myth #3: “I can’t find work I like.”
My first instinct may have been to roll my eyes and tell you to grow up, but I won’t do that. Instead, I’ll politely and calmly remind you that you can’t possibly know what you like yet. You’re in school; that’s the point. I don’t mean to sound like your mother, but you don’t know if you’ll enjoy something until you try. Maybe working at a XXX store pricing pornos doesn’t sound that great on paper, but maybe you’re secretly really great at say, evaluating adult novelty products, and all of a sudden that paycheque seems pretty darn rad. There’s not really a snarky moral to this story — you just need to put yourself out there and make the best of it.
Myth #4: “I can’t find work.”
This is the most common excuse I hear, which is funny because it’s also flat-out not true. Unsurprisingly, there are still so many employers willing to exploit the naivety of students and hire you for minimum wage. What you’re really saying is Myth #3, except that this time I’ve got even less sympathy and I’m going to tell you to man the fuck up for real, and start writing resumes, because your tuition’s not going to pay itself. The economy is bad, but it’s not that bad. Are you willing to work evenings? Weekends? To get your hands dirty? To take instruction from people far less qualified than yourself? The answer to all of these questions is ‘yes’. Half a communication degree doesn’t get you $30 an hour and an office with a view. In all honestly, it probably doesn’t even get you $12 an hour in a basement. (Did I just spoil the surprise?) Think realistically about your odds, and then adjust your standards.
Myth #5: “My parents pay my rent, tuition, books, and beer money. I don’t need to earn my own dollah billz.”
It’s time to cut the umbilical cord. There’s something to be said for even the smallest degree of financial independence, after all.
