[Always *]

How many of you have student loans and still work while in school?

I did not have student loans as I was not eligible because of my parents incomes. Fortunately they were financially able to support me throughout my academic career. I am extremely fortunate that this was the case as I have anxiety issues and ADHD so I am not sure if I could have dealt with having to work full time to pay for my living expenses and tuition on top of being a full time student, though I am sure I could have made it work if I had no other choice. It just would have been so unbelievably god awful, as it was I worked part time and volunteered a lot which was very good for my resume and gave me a lot of experiences that helped me figure out what kind of career I wanted.

Do you find working takes away from you academic success?

No, I would say 16-20 hours of work a week will not interfere with your academic success as long as you are managing your time well, I probably had about 10-15 hours a week of volunteering/work and I also did self defense classes 3 or more days a week and I found that it was ok for me (it all added to that time limit I mentioned), but like I said, you have to manage your time, so I choose to have a smaller social life in order to be able to do all that stuff and focus on getting high grades. Additionally, I think you need to have a job with an employer who will be understanding if you ask for fewer hours for a week or 2 such as if you know if you know you have to write 4 papers in a matter of a week and a half.

What is your experience with student loans with or without a part time job?

Like I said, that wasn't really an issue for me, but I know that a lot of my friends still struggled a lot because their loans didn't cover everything if other expenses come up. So they got jobs to cover what the loans didn't, but like I said 16-20 hours is the ideal.