Friday, November 7, 2008

college scholarship vs. working part time for educational assistance

Before I seriously considered finding a good scholarship, my thought was working part time to get funds for my college was a great idea. I thought that it would be very satisfying for me to spend college with the money I'll earn as a service crew of a fastfood chain or as a data encoder in a law firm.

Just before the qualifying exam for a lot of scholarship opportunities ended, I got the chance to talk to my sister who finished college with the same bachelor's degree that I was planning to take up. She told me a lot of stories from where I learned so much. One of the things that she shared was why she did not graduate on time. It was not because she failed on some of the subjects. It was because there was a time in her college life when she enjoyed having a part time job (because of the money) more than pursuing her full time studies. She ended up doing it in reverse. She became a full time employee and a part time student. She said that she was too young and she was so immature that she was not able to manage the excitement of having your own money to go shopping and go on night outs. She said she did not choose the right choice then.

After that incident, I talked to my mom and told her my plans of working part time to get some funds to aid my studies. My mom was not in favor of that plan as well. Having heard the advice from two of the most trusted persons in the family, I decided to obey.

True enough, getting a college scholarship is better than exposing yourself to activities that (for some part) do not have direct inclination to doing good on your studies. I'm not saying that working and studying are not a perfect match. And that working while studying will give the same results as what happened to my sister. I'm saying, there's a time for everything. Our goal is to land in a job after college, right? So, why not wait?

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