The first time around (i.e. right out of high school), working towards a BSc in Chemical Engineering, I didn't work at first because I had enough scholarships that I didn't need to. However, I didn't have a source of spending money, and ran up debts on my credit card anyway buying clothes and music and marshmallow sundaes, so I probably should have had a small job. Later I got a job in a coffee shop (not Starbucks heheh) that left me lots of free time to sit behind the counter and do my homework, so it was quite win-win.

A few years later, the second time around, I had a full-time programming job and took night classes towards a BSc in Computer Science. I started work at 6:30 AM, did homework at lunch, worked some more, came home, made a dinner that took 20 minutes or less to prepare, ate, went to class, came home, did dishes, watched an episode of Star Trek, and fell asleep. On the weekends I did the bigger homework projects. I feel like I am describing some other, more virtuous person's life, because I DO NOT KNOW HOW I DID THIS FOR TWO YEARS. (Needless to say, this was pre-Lothere.)

The third time around I had savings from the very well-paying full-time job mentioned above, so I moved to Canada, went back to school full-time and finished my BSc in CS in a couple of years and started a MSc. Turns out the US dollar tanked vs. the Canadian, and despite living simply we couldn't have done it without a couple of infusions of cash from Mr. Lothere's parents. At the time it wouldn't have been legal for me to work, and I was mostly too old/too rich/too foreign for any kind of financial aid.

All three of my situations are probably so different from yours that they won't be of much explicit help, but I will try to find a little advice.

#1 indicates that even if you get all the financial aid you need to pay for school and books, make sure you know where your clothes, music (OK this was pre-Internet), and marshmallow sundaes are coming from. Rich boyfriend maybe? And if you don't have a rich boyfriend and DO have a credit card, MAKE SURE you pay that thing off in full every month. Don't fool yourself into thinking "When I get out of school and get a great job, I can pay this thing off lickety-split." Because then, even if you had no student loans, you'll have getting-started-in-life to pay for.

#1 also says that if you can get a job that involves a lot of being a warm body, and you can do your homework in that time, it's a great set-up. Even if it's minimum wage, you have to do the homework anyway!

#2 proves that even lazy people like myself are capable of making work+school happen, even though it takes 100% of your time, is INTENSE, and those two years seem like a blur to me now. This is like the Horatio Alger period of my life. YOU TOO can do anything if you're willing to kick your own ass hard enough.

#3 indicates that things have a funny way of being more expensive / taking longer than you expect. Always allow for this!

Good luck!

I think the "I tried work + school, and school suffered" is actually a good data point to have, Van. I know it's the case for some people. Especially for people who end up working 2 or even 3 jobs to pay for school. There's a lot of overhead involved in getting from school to job to job, keeping track of schedules, putting on uniforms, whatever, that it adds to stress without adding to $$$.

Tiffany, if you aren't familiar with the site Study Hacks, I highly recommend it. I wish it had existed when I was starting college. Have a look at some of the posts in the "If You're New to Study Hacks" sidebar. I especially like the post about being an A* student which is linked to in one of those articles.

I think you are the kind of person who has the brains and the desire to excel, not just get by, and this site has lots of pointers about what it REALLY means to "do well" in college, as well as tips to do it in as low-stress a way possible.

I couldn't find any posts about combining work + studies, unfortunately, but there's a lot of posts about time management, which is the major problem (I think) when it comes to students trying to work during the semester.

Well I'm not working during the school year but I had a summer job from the last week of June to August. I worked on this construction site building a train line. The pay was great, the job was interesting, but I didn't really like it. It also didn't help that my father was my boss.
I would have been happy working at a book store.

I'm sorry I don't have any advice for you Tiffany but I'm sure you'll work it out. Just don't over stress yourself.

I'm so happy they didn't choose me. They didn't even interview me; if they did I would have made sure they wouldn't have chosen me.