In the last post, we discussed less than sympathetic employers and how you had to safeguard your academic goals. Today, we talk about the people you can't quit, your family.
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| From http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com |
If you are the first person in your family to attend college or university, you may run into a common problem. When you were in high school, you had a nice, easy schedule that was, well, consistent. Monday through Friday, you went to school in the morning, took the same classes day after day, and arrived home some time in the afternoon. You may or may not have homework or studying to do outside of class. In college, you may have the bulk of your classes on two or three days. You may have different schedules each of those days. There is little or no time to work on projects, and no study time, so you may have a little or a lot, but you do have outside work.
Unfortunately, it can be hard for someone who hasn't experienced this to understand why you have less free time than you can show on paper. I ran in to this as a student.
My parents: "So, what's your schedule?" (I'd give them the paperwork.) "OK, you're off on Thursday afternoons. You can get your brother from school."
Me: "No. I have to study."
My parents: "What do you mean? You don't have class! Why must you be..."
And so it would go. What I had to do is sit down and explain my work load (both school and job), and we put together a family schedule for the semester. It took a while, but it did make life much easier when they knew what I could do, and I knew what they wanted and needed.
