What should I do next semester?

Comments

1. 	I think you should do the fourth as everything else has a "but" type thing to it.
   	Posted December 4th, 2012 at 06:11 AM by Forever

2. 	Become a stripper. .... Option 4 would be a mistake. Option 1 makes the most sense given the situation, you'll just have to suck it up and make sure you do the online work too.
   	Posted December 4th, 2012 at 06:26 AM by Livewire

3. You definitely do not want to be working full-time and going to school full-time. You'd be burning the candle at both ends and burn yourself out. Though I'd look into the minimum number of credit-hours you need in a semester to be considered a full-time student. At my school, 12 credit hours was the minimum for full-time, and I could get that with 3 classes that were 4 hours of classroom time per week each (meaning 4 credit hours per class). Take the minimum you can while still being full-time, or take as close to the minimum as you can get, without going under the minimum. It may put you a semester behind for graduation, but you'd still technically be a full-time student.

   Posted December 4th, 2012 at 07:12 AM by donavannj

4. Quote: Originally Posted by Forever I think you should do the fourth as everything else has a "but" type thing to it. The but for option four seems obvious. I'd be missing out on a semester of school if I decide to go that route, and I'm very hesitant to do that because I'm already behind of where I should be. Quote: Originally Posted by donavannj You definitely do not want to be working full-time and going to school full-time. You'd be burning the candle at both ends and burn yourself out. Though I'd look into the minimum number of credit-hours you need in a semester to be considered a full-time student. At my school, 12 credit hours was the minimum for full-time, and I could get that with 3 classes that were 4 hours of classroom time per week each (meaning 4 credit hours per class). Take the minimum you can while still being full-time, or take as close to the minimum as you can get, without going under the minimum. It may put you a semester behind for graduation, but you'd still technically be a full-time student. That's what I'm doing right now. I'm taking two online classes and two offline classes for full time status.

   Posted December 4th, 2012 at 10:54 AM by Patchisou Yutohru Updated December 4th, 2012 at 11:08 AM by Patchisou Yutohru

5. 	How come you can't take out a student loan to cover you for option 3?
   	Posted December 4th, 2012 at 01:16 PM by Kura

6. Coming from someone who's in a similar position as you are, I'd say skip the whole semester. I know people are probably going to jump on me for this, but hear me out. Here's probably what's going to happen with the other choices: Choosing half on-campus classes and half online classes This normally would be the ideal solution, but as you've already mentioned, your motivation is a fair contributing factor as to whether or not this would go well or not. For example, what if you had a bad day in class? Wouldn't that kill your motivation to do any of the online work whatsoever? You're very well aware that online classes take a whole lot of motivation and self-independence, and if for some reason you have a less-than-perfect day, you're(most likely) still going to have to commit to that workload to avoid being behind, if that makes sense. The same also applies for the other option: Choosing all online classes/choosing all on-campus classes What if you had a ****** day at work? Are you sure that you're going to commit to all of those online courses? I'd say the absolute safest option here is taking on-campus classes, but do be careful! I know, I know, a lot of what I'm saying is pure hypothetical, but you have to trust me on this as it happened for me multiple times before last semester. Sometimes I would have a terrible day at work, and I would refuse to do any of my homework. And heck, even vice-versa. My on-campus courses would kill a lot of my motivation to work, too! You're going to have to think of some sort of balance. Reason being that you can't fall behind in either work or school. I'm about to go into part-time work soon and hopefully balance that with school, which would be the most ideal and less stressful option(for me, at least, can't say the same for everyone, after all), but full-time work, as you most likely already know, is a lot to handle. I agree with Don in the sense that you're pretty much carrying a ton on your shoulders, and if you factor in emotional exhaustion, and the fact that we have to give ourselves at least somewhat of a break to avoid a complete meltdown, then you'd see why the safest option is to just skip the semester and save what you can from this full-time job. You can't be further behind. But you also can't afford your GPA to plummet because of the stresses of having a full-time job. For me personally, grades and academics matter just about almost everything else. A job is a job. As tiring as it is to apply for(and be in) one, there's still plenty of them out there. You only have, however, only so many chances to keep up your grades.

   Posted December 4th, 2012 at 03:45 PM by Winter's Dew

7. I'd do the minimum while taking all in-person/on-campus classes, since the on-campus classes have a rigid reminder that you're in the course week in and week out, given that you're trying to take the minimum and are worried about whether you'll do the work online or not. Taking a semester off might work, but your loans might come due unless you can get a deferment to go through with your loan handler stating that you plan on returning in the fall.

   Posted December 4th, 2012 at 06:05 PM by donavannj

8. Quote: Originally Posted by Kura How come you can't take out a student loan to cover you for option 3? And quit my job? Quote: Originally Posted by donavannj I'd do the minimum while taking all in-person/on-campus classes, since the on-campus classes have a rigid reminder that you're in the course week in and week out, given that you're trying to take the minimum and are worried about whether you'll do the work online or not. Taking a semester off might work, but your loans might come due unless you can get a deferment to go through with your loan handler stating that you plan on returning in the fall. I don't have any loans. I go to school purely with financial aid, until I transfer back to my original school. Right now I'm in community college so it's relatively inexpensive.

   Posted December 4th, 2012 at 06:58 PM by Patchisou Yutohru

9. If you have the leeway to take "easier" classes this semester, and if this time constraint you're under is something you expect to be particularly bad this semester, then that's what I would recommend: take easier classes. I don't recommend putting off the harder/more intensive math, English, and sciences classes that you have to (might have to?) do to graduate because they end up haunting you down the road when you might need an easier semester even more than you do now, but if this is going to be a particularly bad time that you nevertheless want to work through then try to make things a little easier without sacrificing things in the long term. Are there classes you can take that would satisfy graduation requirements that you can take online and that are also either on the easier side of thing or more interesting to you? Those would be the ideal classes to take online. You really do want to take, for instance, math in person because of the help you can get from the teacher more directly (or at least that's how it was for me and that's what I'm basing my advice from). I would really strongly suggest that you don't skip semesters. The longer you wait to get done with school the harder it gets. I have a friend who I went to high school with. He's still trying to get through junior college. He keeps taking breaks. Of course he's taken several breaks, but that wasn't his plan in the beginning. It became a sort of easy out for him. It's his decision what he does of course, but both he and I know it wasn't helpful for his academic future to take so many breaks. I don't know your financial situation though. I had a small scholarship thingy to help me pay for books and I had limited travel expenses when I went to a community college (since I was close enough that I could walk if I needed to) so money wasn't as much a concern for me, but from my experience going through school and also working at school I can say that the students who don't take breaks are more likely to graduate and move on to whatever else they're doing.

   Posted December 4th, 2012 at 07:12 PM by Scarf

10. Quote: Originally Posted by Patchisou Yutohru And quit my job? I don't have any loans. I go to school purely with financial aid, until I transfer back to my original school. Right now I'm in community college so it's relatively inexpensive. I don't know what kind of job you have, but would you be able to take reduced hours during finals? Or if you can take leave to see if you can balance it. IMO finishing school quickly is important. Tuition will just keep rising. Get what you need done and make sure you learn the skillsets you will need for your career. I don't know how much you need, to be honest. Are you living on campus? Do you need gas money? can you recoup these expenses with a summer job? Can you work weekends only? etc. Don't know how much you need the job, or if it's more worth it to take out a student loan, get school done, and pay it back with a high-earning career.

    Posted December 4th, 2012 at 08:33 PM by Kura

11. Quote: Originally Posted by Scarf If you have the leeway to take "easier" classes this semester, and if this time constraint you're under is something you expect to be particularly bad this semester, then that's what I would recommend: take easier classes. I don't recommend putting off the harder/more intensive math, English, and sciences classes that you have to (might have to?) do to graduate because they end up haunting you down the road when you might need an easier semester even more than you do now, but if this is going to be a particularly bad time that you nevertheless want to work through then try to make things a little easier without sacrificing things in the long term. Are there classes you can take that would satisfy graduation requirements that you can take online and that are also either on the easier side of thing or more interesting to you? Those would be the ideal classes to take online. You really do want to take, for instance, math in person because of the help you can get from the teacher more directly (or at least that's how it was for me and that's what I'm basing my advice from). I would really strongly suggest that you don't skip semesters. The longer you wait to get done with school the harder it gets. I have a friend who I went to high school with. He's still trying to get through junior college. He keeps taking breaks. Of course he's taken several breaks, but that wasn't his plan in the beginning. It became a sort of easy out for him. It's his decision what he does of course, but both he and I know it wasn't helpful for his academic future to take so many breaks. I don't know your financial situation though. I had a small scholarship thingy to help me pay for books and I had limited travel expenses when I went to a community college (since I was close enough that I could walk if I needed to) so money wasn't as much a concern for me, but from my experience going through school and also working at school I can say that the students who don't take breaks are more likely to graduate and move on to whatever else they're doing. But the problem with that is emotional stress and stresses in general. Nick can correct me if I'm wrong, but juggling full-time school and full-time work would drive a good amount of people nuts, regardless of whether they take "easy" classes or not(in my perspective, anyway). I mean, I don't truly think there is such thing as an absolutely "easy" course as even something easy can have a fair few amount of challenges, and balancing those challenges, along with having an intensive work schedule is a lot of pressure to shoulder. What I'm saying is that, he has a chance to go to school during the fall and save his grades in the ultimate worse case scenario that, someday, things comes crashing down on him and he goes in a "**** school and work" kind of mood, y'know? Even I have those moments sometimes, and obviously, they're not really pretty to have. If I was in his shoes, I would not risk my grades and my GPA whatsoever, when there are plenty of opportunities to make a few extra bucks here and there. This might sound ludicrous, but even though it might take extra time for me to graduate(which would be the frustrating part), at least my self-esteem would be intact because I would have something above a 3.0, which means that as far as future scholarships and grants and other opportunities are concerned, I'd still have a fair bright future.

    Posted December 4th, 2012 at 09:21 PM by Winter's Dew Updated December 4th, 2012 at 11:13 PM by Winter's Dew

12. 	I've seen people get in a rut too, though, by taking semesters off. One's even my own cousin who is 27 and still not finished her 2-year early childhood education course because she takes like one class per year. WOuldnt want that to happen to Nick here.
    	Posted December 4th, 2012 at 09:39 PM by Kura

13. Of course. Taking semesters off recklessly can lead to very delayed graduation. This is where choosing the lesser evil comes in. Take classes and have the added weight of a job, or drop one over the other. Regardless, there'll be consequences either way, but I strongly believe that it wouldn't kill him to take this semester off if saving up money is of vital importance to him. If money isn't a concern, then he can resign his job and get more involved in his education, if that makes sense.

    Posted December 4th, 2012 at 11:18 PM by Winter's Dew

14. Quote: Originally Posted by Patchisou Yutohru I don't have any loans. I go to school purely with financial aid, until I transfer back to my original school. Right now I'm in community college so it's relatively inexpensive. I'm talking about your financial aid loans (aka subsidized Stafford and Unsubsidized Stafford) that get disbursed to you through your school. Unless you're entirely on grants and scholarships that you don't ever have to pay back, your financial aid loans come due after 6 months of not being in school, unless you give notice to your loan handler of a repayment difficulty due to your situation.

    Posted December 5th, 2012 at 06:10 AM by donavannj

15. Quote: Originally Posted by donavannj I'm talking about your financial aid loans (aka subsidized Stafford and Unsubsidized Stafford) that get disbursed to you through your school. Unless you're entirely on grants and scholarships that you don't ever have to pay back, your financial aid loans come due after 6 months of not being in school, unless you give notice to your loan handler of a repayment difficulty due to your situation. Mine's entirely on Federal Pell Grant.

    Posted December 5th, 2012 at 06:04 PM by Patchisou Yutohru

16. Quote: Originally Posted by Patchisou Yutohru Mine's entirely on Federal Pell Grant. Ah, okay. You don't really have to worry about that, then. Still, school is something you probably shouldn't put off for a semester, otherwise you might miss the deadline to register for classes for the semester you plan on returning. There's also the matter of getting back through the admissions process, which is admittedly easier at a community college. That said, a semester off may be your best course of action to prevent burnout, which can readily derail any attempt at going to further schooling later with ease once you've been hit with a single bout of it.

    Posted December 6th, 2012 at 09:01 AM by donavannj

Patchisou Yutohru

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