It was in the living room of my college apartment that I had yet another striking realization that my life is very different than that of a lot of people my age.
“Guys I actually love being in college, it’s like we’re all just living in a bubble where all we have to worry about is school and we just get to hang out with our friends”
One of my roommates went on to say how it was so nice that we weren’t working full time hours and were basically living in a fantasy world and I almost laughed out loud.
Yesterday was the first day off I have had in six weeks, and I won’t have another for six more. I actually almost hit full times hours this past week (again) and I haven’t slept past 7:30 am in weeks. In the 8 months since I’ve turned 21, I’ve been to a bar a grand total of twice, partly because I work early mornings and weekends and partly because it’s too expensive. When I finished my finals last winter, I immediately went to work for a 60 hour work week so I would be able to pay rent. If this is a dream world, I would love to wake up.
I didn’t realize until college how different life is for people in the working class. My parents have always done everything they can do to make sure that my siblings and I have everything we need, but that looks a lot different when you enter the world of epically high tuition bills and never ending college fees. When I started college back in 2016, I very quickly realized that my college experience would not be filled with tailgates and late nights out with friends, but with long shifts and a lot of anxiety about money.
I seriously debated whether or not I would even write about this topic, because sometimes even just talking about it makes me feel like I’m begging for pity or demanding to be praised. Oftentimes I think that I shouldn’t even complain about my life, because there are many people in this world who have it worse than I do- students working more than I am, who have children or parents to take care of, students who are homeless.
But the reality of it is that being a working college student is HARD. Harder than most people realize, I think. It’s early mornings and late nights at work, and alternately early mornings and late nights of studying in between. It’s feeling isolated from your peers because, no, I can’t hang out and yes, I have to work again. It’s hearing over and over again that I work too much and am wasting the “best four years of my life” being serious and responsible. A lot of times I feel like I can only relate to my coworkers and to my parents. Out of my extended family, I’m the only one out of the ridiculous amount of cousins I have who had to work through being a full time student. My older sister got through school on an ROTC scholarship, so even her experience was very different from my own. I can’t even count the times that I’ve fallen silent at family gatherings because I don’t have any crazy college stories to share like everyone else is, only work anecdotes. Even though I know it’s statistically not true, being from a middle class town and being strikingly different from my own family can make it feel like I am the only working student out there.
Despite the difficulty I have found in being a working student, there are also many important life skills and qualities that I have gained. For one, I have gotten a higher level of self discipline and grit than I ever could’ve from just being a student. It is so easy to come home from a long day at work and just watch Netflix or go to bed, because there is nothing like the reward of writing an essay when you’ve been on your feet all day; but there is something to be said for being able to push through and do it anyways. I also feel like I appreciate my education more than others do. This opportunity very easily could not have happened for me, and at several instances was almost taken from me, so consequently I do not take it lightly. Every time I see people skipping class for no reason or texted through an entire lecture, I think about all the people who would do anything to have this privilege and it makes me so mad that people just waste it. I am definitely far from perfect, but I have consciously made an effort to take this privilege very seriously.
I have also found that a lot of my friendships have taken on a whole new level of intimacy during particularly busy and trying times. I’ve always had a deep fear that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with friendships or that people would fall away because I couldn’t give them enough of my time. While that has happened on occasion, I have also seen the complete opposite. My best friend will often come over while I’m doing completely mundane tasks like laundry or studying just to be with me, with no expectation of anything else. I have so many friends who will pick up where we left off like it was nothing, even though it’ll often be months between visits. My job has given me some incredible friends that I wouldn’t have met otherwise, friends who are not only great to work with but who are very supportive and excited about my education. I think some of them might be more excited about my graduation than I am.
In spite of all the hardships, being a working student has truly shaped who I am today.
And although I could do with a whole Saturday to myself, I wouldn’t change my experience at all.
This is a wonderful and important essay. You're not alone in your experience, but you're right that it makes for a very different life than the one a lot of people have and have had in college. And it's very different from the stereotypical view of who college students are and what their lives are like. Thank you for writing this, and for writing it so well.