A university student juggles all the crucial components of maintaining a healthy lifestyle as soon as their studying begins. It can be tough balancing a job and being a full-time student but for many it's a necessity. Having a job whilst studying can mean supporting university commitments, sporting and hobby pursuits, social interactions and general every day to day financial needs. Having a job can also mean being more employable after graduating, where students are gaining crucial experience during their studies.
Holmes conducted a study in 2008 titled “Working to live: Why university students balance full‐time study and employment.” This study explores a number of ideas associated with student work/life balance. This study found 88 per cent of students worked at some time since starting their degree programme, while 83 per cent of students in the study worked during term. In total 58 per cent of those students who worked did so to either cover or contribute to basic costs of living (Holmes, 2008). They resulted in students no longer being considered as full-time students, but rather as having dual roles, that of students and employees.
This study also highlighted what students look for when applying for a job in regards to what influences a students job choice. These graphs bring attention to what was important for the students within the study:
The results show that flexibility was the most important factor, followed by the ability of work to fit study patterns and finally the least important factor was that the job would count as work experience.
A 2012 study conducted by Universities Australia, found that Australian tertiary students reported that they regularly go without necessities including food, medications, fuel and prescribed textbooks.
Students gave responses describing what their financial hardships ultimately effects:
"Working part-time as well as family commitments while on placement nearly killed me. Even doing a part-time placement was hellish…and I was totally burnt out at the end of each one."
"Budgeting to afford petrol to travel to another campus which is a two hour round trip impacts on the ability to afford food for the day."
"It's been pretty tough this year. I have had to constantly borrow money from my parents to survive. Text books are expensive and there is not much time to work. I'm on 10 weeks practicum this year in total and I don't earn any income during those periods. At those times I have to rely on Centrelink which does not cover living expenses, hence borrowing from family and using a credit card. I hate being in debt. Anytime I try to pay it back, I end up again taking the money because by taking that out of my fortnightly budget I don't have enough to get by... If something happens, i.e. my car breaks down or computer gets a virus, I could not afford to deal with it and would again have to rely on family. Thankfully I am lucky enough to have this fall back option."
It's easily seen within these studies that the balance of work and study can be extremely detrimental to a students study and wellbeing. However, after reading multiple studies, conversation journals and articles addressing this balance for a student, I cant help but question the support set out in universities to assist students and more specifically the way in which timetabling for students are being addressed.
With so many aspects to why students choose to have a job and study, its hard to justify a successful outcome in regards to my research project its time permitting. A broad research topic like that would also need a larger research audience, therefore I intend to focus on the aspect that bad timetabling has an effect on studying students. Questioning from compulsory lectures, lecture times to tutorial placements, I intend to research the way in which students job availabilities are effected due to poor timetabling which thus inevitably have lead to the wellbeing and lifestyle issues which the previous studies have found.
I intend to create a large scale survey to collect quantitative results with general questions regarding those of who balance work and study within their timetable. Then if time permits I'd like to potentially survey a small sample of people, most likely my tutorial class, in regards to collecting qualitative responses to gain a deeper understanding on the effects bad timetabling options has effected their work life opportunities.
References:
Holmes, V. (2008). "Working to live: Why university students balance full‐time study and employment,”. Education Training, 50(4), 305–314. http://doi.org/10.1108/00400910810880542
Bexley, E., Daroesman, S., Arkoudis, S., & James, R. (2012). A study of the financial circumstances of domestic and international students in Australia’s universities. University Student Finances 2012. Retrieved from https://melbourne-cshe.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/1714715/StudentFinances2012.pdf
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