When I was in college, I did work study for 1.5 years. I could have done it my freshman year too, but my mom wanted me to focus on my studies so she had me not work that year. (Although, once she realized how little work study intereferes, she said she wished she had let me work.) Work study is offered to those that need financial aid. Usually you get enough to work about 10 hours a week for the school year. However, if you approached the work study office, they usually would approve you for more money near the end of the year if you ran out of money.
The benefits of work study is that if there is no work for you to do, you are allowed to do homework (hence the name). Most offices on campus have positions available. My choice was to work at the main desk of my residence hall/dorm. My job was to sort mail for the residents, tag and distribute packages, loan equipment, and answer questions. It was a lot of fun.
Since the money is provided as a paycheck each week, it does not actually decrease your tuition bill. Thus, the negative side is that the money earned can then be used for non-school related items. So even though it is part of financial aid (because it's offered based on need), it does not change the amount you owe.
But other than this one negative, I think work study is great and the positives definitely outway the negative. If you are provided work study as a form of financial aid, take it. If you decide you don't like working in one place, you can always apply somewhere else the next semester.
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3 comments:
I got work-study aid my freshman year, and man, everybody wanted to hire me. When you are a work-study student, the federal govt pays 75% of your salary. So you are really cheap labor. =) I lost it the next year when my sister graduated from college and jobs were a lot harder to get. There are some schools where you can't get a job without it.
Oh and by the way it is called work-study because it is a grant for students. A lot of the jobs that it funds are sit on your ass type things though. All the grant does is change where the money comes from, not what kind of jobs you can get with it.
I got work-study aid my freshman year too. Unfortunately, I got put to work in the cafeteria! Thankfully, one of my best friends ended up there too. Doing dishes during Saturday lunch would have been miserable without her.
Thanks for the great blog!
My library workstudy job was the best. It was really hard to get it because it's a coveted spot in a very social area. You see all your friends and chat with them while you work. You get to read all the daily papers and only shelve the books for 10 minutes.
I had another one in the Geography department and after getting to know the department, I switched my major (hence my nickname). I stayed with them for 3 years and the girl who took the job after me became one of my friends. I loved that office, the people were so nice and I got great job references through them, which is another reason you want to take work-study. It makes a difference on your resume if you get the right kind of job.
Speaking of which, I wish I had gotten a job in the computer labs because I probably would have started my IT career a lot sooner if I had. Work-study has an immediate financial benefit, but you can really leverage it into a good career if you know what you are doing. A lot of my friends washed lab glass and did PowerPoint graphs for researchers and ended up getting published in JAMA before they finished undergrad. That looks impressive to grad schools!
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