[prepare yourself for a long post. This is my study break and I'm milking it for all I can]
Hey
@Coopah, I agree with what
@Camio said. There are a few people that will work for a few hours on one day of the weekend or 1 or 2 evenings after 6pm and it was definitely something I considered. But honestly I don't think it's worth it. Most likely, you'll be making (I'm assuming so maybe better in your case) $80 or less a week for one 8-hour Saturday shift and losing 8 hours that you could be studying or meeting with review groups or even with anatomy professors who make themselves available on the weekend. While having a little more spending money might be nice, the trade-off wasn't worth it. If your job is one where if you have to keep working throughout the year in order to guarantee yourself a job during the holidays or summer, then maybe that would make it more worth it. Or if it was a job where you had a lot of down-time and could almost get paid to study, then maybe.
There are many job opportunities on campus. There are vet tech teams in both the small and large animal hospitals that you might be able to get as long as you have either some tech experience or large animal experience (about 18 open spots this year that I think 60ish first and second years applied for). Those are on-call and you only get paid for the hours you get called in. I think some weeks you may be able to get called in for 6-10 hours (I think the rate is $10 an hour (someone who's actually doing this feel free to correct me!)) and other weeks you won't get called in at all. There are a couple other more paperworky jobs in the hospital too that have more steady hours. Then, there are so so so so many people in the area that are looking for dog walkers and pet sitters, so depending on your housing situation and time management you could sign up for as many or as few of those as you'd like. So again, lots of ways to earn a little extra spending money without having to find and make a commitment to a steady off-campus job.
This may be a privilege, as besides rent and basic utilities and food I don't have any big expenses, but what I've used as a good judgement for myself to decide if I want to go out for a job and put in the time investment or not is the question "is this job going to help me academically or experientially?" I've walked and pet-sat so many dogs in the past such that I don't need any more "practice" doing it so I don't allocate any time to trying to do those jobs. But I have no vet tech experience so I tried to get in to both the tech teams as I figured that would be a great way to enhance myself academically and get a little extra money on the side. To me it didn't feel like by doing that job, I would be losing study hours, because I would be gaining so much good exposure and practice. But like I said, I guess I can afford to do that now. I'm lucky because my boyfriend currently works a full-time job so I am able to rely partly on my savings and partly on his savings/income. In addition, because I won't have been earning any money this school year, I'm dedicating this upcoming summer to working 1 (maybe two if I'm motivated) jobs to capitalize on not having to study and to earn back some money. This limits my summer options to more techy jobs (which is fine with me as I don't have experience in that) and realistically rules out any cool research or unpaid internships, where perhaps I may get a stipend but it would probably be small and most likely, not much more than breaking even.
The other thing I would say based on your previous post of trying to save up before being able to go to vet school is that at some point you are just going to have to make the jump. It sounds scary but realistically, each year something new will come up; that's kind of just how life works. For most of us, I don't think there may ever be a perfect financial time to throw ourselves into debt and go to vet school. I think the only thing you need to do is make sure your whole family is onboard and realizes that both money and time will be tight for the next 4 (or 40) years.
Happy to help and not study so feel free to keep the questions coming!
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