Should I work first term of freshman year?

[CHCOOH]

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I'm an incoming freshman thinking about getting a campus job. It's for a housing attendant and it's only 8-10 hours a week, with a weekly meeting (For you UCI people it's at Mesa Court). Besides this, I'm taking 14 units of Bio, Chem, and Writing.

It doesn't sound like a bad gig, but maybe I should see if I can handle everything first? Did you guys have jobs freshman year?

 

[kyamh]

I had a job starting September of my first year that I worked at during my entire college career. I needed the money, so it wasn't really an option to not get a job. It is now a big part of my leadership on my application because I worked up to manager.

I don't know your situation, but at my school it was incredibly hard to find a job - especially if you weren't work-study - so I jumped on the opportunity I found right away. It is also likely that it will be harder to find a position half way through the year.

In general, I strongly believe that working for pay is good for responsibility, character, ownership, and general maturity and so I very much encourage it. It is entirely possible to go to any college and have any major and hold down a job (especially one that's only 10 hours a week). Whether or not you want (and need) to make time for it is up to you. You're adjusting to college as it is, you won't really know the difference between adjusting to working while studying and just adjusting to college level academics, imo...