Which is harder, College or work??

D!ve^Bomb!

This is an age old debate between me and my gf.. She is a full time student in Trinity, granted its hard work, she leaves early(approx 7.15am) and gets home late(between 4 and 7, depending on the day)... now i know she finds it hard as she's is doin some subjects in trinity that she never even did in school!!

she is always goin on at me for being tired and i have to admit that i'm the same with her.. sometimes

Anyway, she basically says that i have it easy compared to her, that 'YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO GET UP TILL 9' crap...

I work full time, i work from 10.30am till 9pm.. i leave home in the morning at 9.30 and don't get home till 9.30 pm.. thats 4 days a week AND i go to college on saturdays myself!!

we always get into the same 'argument' about who does more/less so what do you think?

RuggieBear

newband wrote:

This is an age old debate between me and my gf.. She is a full time student in Trinity, granted its hard work, she leaves early(approx 7.15am) and gets home late(between 4 and 7, depending on the day)... now i know she finds it hard as she's is doin some subjects in trinity that she never even did in school!!

she is always goin on at me for being tired and i have to admit that i'm the same with her.. sometimes

Anyway, she basically says that i have it easy compared to her, that 'YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO GET UP TILL 9' crap...

I work full time, i work from 10.30am till 9pm.. i leave home in the morning at 9.30 and don't get home till 9.30 pm.. thats 4 days a week AND i go to college on saturdays myself!!

we always get into the same 'argument' about who does more/less so what do you think?

Not sure tbh....but i'm a PhD student and one of the biggest problems i face is not being able to tune out of my work. I have no set times so i tend to think about my work all the time as oppsossed to somebody at work who can just switch off come clocking out time....

woosaysdan

i think theres going to be a lot of flaming goin on in here!!! students V workers!!! but imo they are both just as hard!!!

D!ve^Bomb!

damn it!! i chose to post a poll but it didn't let me... is there any chance a mod can put a poll on this thread please.. preety please??

p.pete

Depends on the effort you put in - In college I had times where I worked my proverbials off and others where I coasted. Same with work, sometimes hard working sometimes not.

In college I think it's more likely to be challenging as well as a slog where as work, once you've figured out what you're doing it just boils down to how much you're slogging.

adjodlo

Are you insane? I think you'd have to be to chose work over college.


You can't go into work pissed. In college it's practically expected.

p.pete

newband wrote:

damn it!! i chose to post a poll but it didn't let me... is there any chance a mod can put a poll on this thread please.. preety please??

You can't edit the first post and add a poll?

dudara

Have to agree with RuggieBear here. I'm a PhD student as well, so I'm doing all this purely for the love of my subject and the desire for better qualifications. It's very hard to switch off from work. However, recently I took a temporary assembly line job to make some money, and I actually found it to be a relief from my PhD work. It was great to do a defined and set job for a while, and when you clocked out, it was great that to know that that was the end of it.

David19

It depends on the college course and the job. My friend has a three day week in college. Thats hardly tough. I myelf am doing a maths degree and its tough. Im in from 9 or 10 till six most days. I have a lot of homework and study. The good thing about work is once you get home your day is finished where as in college the work day is less defined, you could study for hours after college.

D!ve^Bomb!

p.pete wrote:

You can't edit the first post and add a poll?

nope,, thats a good idea tho...



i know if i could choose i wouldn't mind being in college full time.. that must mean somethin

D!ve^Bomb!

David19 wrote:

It depends on the college course and the job. My friend has a three day week in college. Thats hardly tough. I myelf am doing a maths degree and its tough. Im in from 9 or 10 till six most days. I have a lot of homework and study. The good thing about work is once you get home your day is finished where as in college the work day is less defined, you could study for hours after college.

yeah but you can study for hours in the comfort of your own home, at your own pace... in work there are targets to be met, standards to uphold etc etc.. (depending on the job of course)

ixoy

Depends. Work, for me, has nice dependable hours. My evenings are free and, as soon as I leave my desk (and often many hours before) I completely forget about work and don't worry about it. Whereas with college you may have assignments to do or exams to study for.

On the other hand if I go out mid-week, work is a nightmare the next day. In college though you can sit in an injured huddle at the back or just not turn up. Either way it doesn't involve ringing in sick, worrying about making lies to your boss, or being a noticable corpse propped in front of your PC.

From what I recall, college may at times be harder but it was a lot more fun, so I'm going to say work is harder because I am working right now, I don't want to work, and all you college students are benefitting from the taxes produced from my work (etc etc blah).

uberwolf

dudara wrote:

job to make some money

this is a factor as well of course. College, normally = college + work

the switching off is a major difficulty. The level of engagement required for academic success has left me going to sleep with a problem or issue and waking up with a potential solution. 24/7 job there

David19

newband wrote:

yeah but you can study for hours in the comfort of your own home, at your own pace... in work there are targets to be met, standards to uphold etc etc.. (depending on the job of course)

But as ixoy pointed out you do have deadlines and targets to be made in college. You have assignments every week and exams every few months. I think college is probably more enjoyable though(thats if you enjoy the course). Its more relaxed. If you don't turn up no one says anything. A job is a bit more ardous. Altough that said some people love their job.

magpie

The clue is in the name: "work"

Giblet

My Engineering Course was hell, any work was easy compared to it.

I'm doing computers now and it's very very very easy.

Imposter

If work was so much fun the rich would have kept more of it for themselves.

Aurther Hugh

College, esp. post grad, bad nightmare. Like being in college without any of the perks, ie FUN !

fletch

Would have to say college is harder....but then again I do have a pretty handy job

pickarooney

I always tend to get by on as little effort as possible, so college was way easier than work. Not that work is particularly difficult, but you still have to be there every day from morning till night, regardless of how much there is to do, whereas in college you just show up when you feel like it. I imagine it varies from course to course though.

Must get a job where you go home as soon as the work is done....

fintan

I would have to say work is harder than college, because in college you have summer holidays which means at least three to four months off a year.

D!ve^Bomb!

yeah thats a damn good point!!! my girlfriend gets ONE MONTH off for xmas!! i get THREE DAYS, and i'll probably end up working xmas day anyway... triple pay:D

woosaysdan

uummm i like triple pay!!! its nearly as nice a turkey

magpie

You could become a teacher and 'work' for 8 months a year.

Seraphina

im currently in college and im finding it very difficult. most of you are going on about the 'fun' of college and there being no problems going in hungover or just not turning up.
thats if you have friends to go out with and get you notes or tell you what happened in the lecture. im finding college a bitch, esp. since im working too and consequently i dont have any days off at all (work all weekend)
finishing college at 12 on a tuesday is all well and good, except that time ISN'T free as you've got a mound of reading to do and however many essays to complete (i have three due in in less than two weeks)
research and reading and essays are EXTREMELY time consuming, and if i do decide to take an evening off from doing whatever, there is always a huge guilt factor.

college is fun if you dont care about how you do in exams or assignments, otherwise its a bitch.

D!ve^Bomb!

ah stop your complaining... you're stoned right now ain't ya, probably just woke up aswell

Sarn

Ah but what if you're like me and you work in college. I come in when I want (within reason), do my work, go home, long Christmas holidays, take the day off if I've a hangover. Get paid reasonably well. So long as I produce results I'm sorted.

My postgrad years were easier then my undergrad years. No exams (except the one big one at the end). The only problem is that it hangs over you 24/7. That horrible feeling waking up in the middle of the night stressed because something isn't working. But then you have the super flexibility of it.

Undergrad years (depending on the course) do require constant commitment and after hours study compared to a regular job.

GiMiC

RuggieBear wrote:

Not sure tbh....but i'm a PhD student and one of the biggest problems i face is not being able to tune out of my work. I have no set times so i tend to think about my work all the time as oppsossed to somebody at work who can just switch off come clocking out time....

Exactly the way I felt when doing my MSc. Once I finished, it was quite a change to suddenly have my free time to do whatever I wanted, rather than always be thinking "I probably should be writing something".

pretty-in-pink

If you are a student who doesn't have a job, gets free accomodation, has money thrown at them by the parents, and is a suoper smart genius who can skip any class they don't feel like attending..........then yeah college is easier. But how many of those exist?

However, I have a job that requires one evening a week- so that takes away an evenimng I could be doing college work, or relaxing. I work all weekend every weekend- and we don't get to leave at six or whenever the shop closes, we get to saty until its tidy, and the managers say we can go. Free time is a joke, and having lots of money to do all the fun things you stated? Not realistic. Most students are broke, tired and fed up. They have a "job"! thats more then full time hours- college- to be able to have any standard of living they need a job.....so where is the free time?where is the easy life?sure its a choice- so is working. Our choice hopefully qualifies us to do better then a crappy 9-5 that bores us to death.

Work is something that pays you a lot to be there, you don't need to take it home, there is no extra slog...if you do overtime you get lots of dosh. People take advantage of students cause we can't work the 40 hour week. Full time work may have more "responsibility" but it look like a cakewalk to me! Days off, to with what you like? Being able to afford nice stuff? I'll swap, if any of ye think you can handle working 7 days a week every week for 3-8 years. Oh and those "holidays"...spent working, studying etc. We still manage to go out to, when we can afford it and are not going to pass out asleep.

D!ve^Bomb!

naughty_girl wrote:

if any of ye think you can handle working 7 days a week every week for 3-8 years. Oh and those "holidays"...spent working, studying etc. We still manage to go out to, when we can afford it and are not going to pass out asleep.

i'm sure there is a violin playin somewhere... students get approximately 6months holiday a year.. i get 25days, some people get less...

simu

College is sweet if you don't have financial worries. I got a scholarship to do a PhD and so, I get to pick my working hours and the work I do is benefitting myself in that it's increasing my (and others', eventually) knowledge of the world rather than adding to the profits of some company as is often the case with work-type situations.

Skellington

i work as an electrician and i do roughly 9 to 14 hours a day... an that time is spent crawling around tiny attics, under floor boards that are covered with rats and mice which means lots of rat and mouse sh*t, fixing sockets for scumbags that leave syringes :mad: , sh*ty underwear :eek: and all sorts of crap lying around and thats not even the dirty houses... i know i'm posting this at 15:28 when i said i do 9 to 14 hours but there was some.......unplesantness :mad: today that got us finished early

and then ya have college... a friend of mine recently went to study actuary in edinburgh. his full time course comes to a grand total of 12 hours a week, and the rest of the time hes pissed.

which one sounds harder?

NotMe

College is definately more stressful for me. I've two assignments for this week, two for the week after and one after that. And then there's exams... It's none stop. At least with work I can just forget about it when I'm not in.

SoupyNorman

College is the best move ive ever made, 3years of working since finishing school and nothing to show for it....Into my second year now and its great, ive got 20hours a week so all my studying is done during the day and early evening which leaves me free to do whatever me wants at night. Only bitch is i havnt had a friday, saturday or sunday off for about a year but the midweek drinking eases that pain.

Number one thing is the lunch time sex...sweet!

seamus

The main differences (for me):

College: Go to bed at 2am. Sleep till 12pm.
Work: Go to bed at 11pm. Sleep til 6/7am

College: Constantly have assignments hanging over your head. You never seem to be out of the college "mode". Even on weekends and holidays, you're vaguely aware of all the things you have to do. Get most of your work done outside of college.
Work: Get all of your work done in work. Once you leave in the evening, you have nothing hanging over your head. Holidays are no longer marred by the constant thought of what you have to do when you go back.

College: 3 hour lunchbreaks.
Work: 1 hour lunchbreaks.

College: A night out on the piss when you feel like it.
Work: A night out on the piss when you feel like it, but at a hefty price.

College: Working most weekends.
Work: All weekends off.

I'd say work is harder, but only because I work harder than I ever did in college (ask uberwolf). I'm much happier in the working world.

Tyrrial

i''ve found that College is far easier.. and more interesting, i worked full time in an office and it melted my brain.. same stuff day in, day out. at least college can keep your attention (but it is more work)

Dr. Loon

newband wrote:

This is an age old debate between me and my gf.. She is a full time student in Trinity, granted its hard work, she leaves early(approx 7.15am) and gets home late(between 4 and 7, depending on the day)... now i know she finds it hard as she's is doin some subjects in trinity that she never even did in school!!

she is always goin on at me for being tired and i have to admit that i'm the same with her.. sometimes

Anyway, she basically says that i have it easy compared to her, that 'YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO GET UP TILL 9' crap...

I work full time, i work from 10.30am till 9pm.. i leave home in the morning at 9.30 and don't get home till 9.30 pm.. thats 4 days a week AND i go to college on saturdays myself!!

we always get into the same 'argument' about who does more/less so what do you think?

I think you and your girlfriend should realise that arguing about who does more is stupid and very, very pointless. It'll just get worse and worse, but the answer is of course work.

This is the gospel of the Loon.

pickarooney

Erasmus student (are they still called that?) - the dossingest doss of them all. Wish I had a couple more years of that to look forward to.

Iago

Has to be work for me.

1. Work goes from 9-5 sometimes later without a break. In college you'll generally have an hour or two free at some point during the day

2. Work is a 5 day (sometimes 6 day) week, again in college you might have a half day or even a full day without lectures

3. Even when I leave the office I've to be available on the phone for calls from work, so I don't get to switch off and forget about it afterwards.

4. In work you have a certain amount of work that you have to get through regardless. In college you can choose how much work you do, knowing that it will impact on your results.

5. In work I get 21 days holidays a year, in college you get 3 months in the summer and 2-3 weeks in the winter as well as mid-terms during the year


Work is definitely harder!

D!ve^Bomb!

Dr. Loon wrote:

I think you and your girlfriend should realise that arguing about who does more is stupid and very, very pointless. It'll just get worse and worse, but the answer is of course work.

This is the gospel of the Loon.

relax, this isn't PI ffs.. we're together almost 2.5 years, i'm sure we'll make it through this tough time :rolleyes:

ShiverinEskimo

depends on time of year. like now this week i had three massive things to get done for college. i reckon exam week and deadline week is a bitch. But me and my girlfriend have similar discussions. She says I have it easy (she commutes to dublin) and I agree. I have it easy. 14 hours a week with a half day tuesday and friday. On monday, wednesday and thursday I have big enogh gaps to get to a snooker hall, play an hour and make it back with plenty of time to perve the sweet young females of DKIT. What more can a man ask for?
Having worked in an office for 2 years before returning to college i can safely say - college is just feckin brilliant. Laxy Daisy Lifestyle.

Third_Echelon

College was a bit more relaxed i think. You could plan your day the way you wanted to, which left you with a lot of flexibility to do other things if you needed to, depending on what lectures you had etc. You could catch up on some sleep, project work, gym (not that i used it a lot, but the option was there), reading etc...

You had projects which needed to be done by a certain date and you knew that the deadline had to be reached or you'd lose marks etc...

With work, its a bit more 'stressful' that college. You have more responsibility on your shoulders. If something goes wrong, its not just a mock scenario as in college.. fcuk ups mean losing money in the real world.

You are answerable to your boss. In college you are answerable to yourself and nobody else. If you do badly you are the one who is affected. In work if you do badly, this reflects on the company and its image...

I would say that work is 'harder' than college in this sense. Not that I find my work hard to do, but there are more constraints on your time and how you do your work etc.

The whole weekends off thing is great though, but as always they could do with being longer....

Third_Echelon

ShiverinEskimo wrote:

depends on time of year. like now this week i had three massive things to get done for college. i reckon exam week and deadline week is a bitch.

most definitely

ShiverinEskimo wrote:

But me and my girlfriend have similar discussions. She says I have it easy (she commutes to dublin) and I agree. I have it easy. 14 hours a week with a half day tuesday and friday. On monday, wednesday and thursday I have big enogh gaps to get to a snooker hall, play an hour and make it back with plenty of time to perve the sweet young females of DKIT. What more can a man ask for?

Yup, the final year is like that. Lots of time for stuff like studying and project work.. you shouldn't be playing snooker :eek: ya waster... and perving at women when you have a gf??? dude, i thought you were a classy bloke...

ShiverinEskimo wrote:

Having worked in an office for 2 years before returning to college i can safely say - college is just feckin brilliant. Laxy Daisy Lifestyle.

fo shizzle :cool:

pretty-in-pink

simu wrote:

College is sweet if you don't have financial worries. I got a scholarship to do a PhD and so, I get to pick my working hours and the work I do is benefitting myself in that it's increasing my (and others', eventually) knowledge of the world rather than adding to the profits of some company as is often the case with work-type situations.

Exactly: If you don't have financial worries, and sure you can "plan your day"- take one off. Sounds lovely to the working perople? Most student I know have to work, they are constantly exhausted, and you have to take your work home for you. If you miss a day in work cause your sick...you're not going to miss anything important. You could do in college. 'Free time'? For me its mostly brought down to: Finish class, assignments, study, work a p/t job- have the worst pay, hours and treatment there-, go home, collapse into bed. UNLESS its a weekend, cause everyone knows we are all jar heads. So we scrape together enough money after food, rent, bills, transport and head to an offy, but the cheapest drink and have to share it. Yeah college is all about having wild nights out, lots of sex, skipping classes and still doing well. If it was so easy why would it be a requirement for a lot of decent jobs?

You can get kicked out of college for being drunk there, you can work hungover too- generaly cause college is different everyday you have to use your brain, not much good if its dead. College is what you make it, you reap what you sow- work has boundries. So you might work harded in work...because you have to, and you obviuosly dossed in college or didn't go but if you want to do well in college you need to work really hard.

Sleepy

I would go back to College in a split second if I could. Granted, I did a Commerce degree which had the grand total of 14 hours lectures a week during the most "hectic" semester I had. The tutorials were really only for the brain-dead amongst us and, apart from a part-time job of maybe 24 hours a week or so, I had the rest of my time to myself and the various college societies and clubs I was involved in. Most of the time I never went to my lectures and just skimmed through the course materials. REMEMBER: In college, you're "reading" towards a degree, not working towards one.

Granted, certain courses do require Herculean effort, if memory serves, some of the engineering courses in NUIG were approaching the 50 hours a week mark.

In college, your only responsibility is towards yourself and your ego. In the working world, you have far more responsibility, far less freedom, your weekends to yourself and if you're lucky a little more money (if you're not, you're still paying for college and so just as broke as when you were there).

The decider for me is the holidays, in college, Christmas is a month, maybe you need to spend some of that time studying, maybe you don't. For the summer, sure, you're probably working for it, but the jobs are of the McJob type where you don't have to give a damn about your work standards, ringing in sick, getting fired or whatever. You can also just head off to the States for the summer, work over there in a different McJob and have the craic.

Sure, college is hard if:

a) You receive no financial support of any kind (food and board counts as support)
b) You are doing a course with more than thirty odd hours a week lectures that also requires outside reading/projects.
c) You have to work a part-time job due to requirement a.

And even at that level of extremity (and you can't deny that it is an extreme position in this country) I've known people who still loved their time in college and would rate it as being a better time in their lives than the early years of working.

Which brings me to another relevant factor in this equation, who's working life do you compare it to? For those of us at the bottom of the corporate ladder, we don't have much more money than when we were students, we get the lowest holiday entitlements and typically shafted on doing the weekend/holiday cover (because we're too broke to refuse the overtime if we're even getting it).

Essentially there are far too many variables to consider in the general work vs college: which is easier debate. From my experiences of each though: I'd take my college days over again as opposed to work.

...and yes, I realise how disjointed and contradictory this post has been!

Sleepy

naughty_girl wrote:

Exactly: If you don't have financial worries, and sure you can "plan your day"- take one off. Sounds lovely to the working perople? Most student I know have to work, they are constantly exhausted, and you have to take your work home for you. If you miss a day in work cause your sick...you're not going to miss anything important. You could do in college. 'Free time'? For me its mostly brought down to: Finish class, assignments, study, work a p/t job- have the worst pay, hours and treatment there-, go home, collapse into bed. UNLESS its a weekend, cause everyone knows we are all jar heads. So we scrape together enough money after food, rent, bills, transport and head to an offy, but the cheapest drink and have to share it. Yeah college is all about having wild nights out, lots of sex, skipping classes and still doing well. If it was so easy why would it be a requirement for a lot of decent jobs?

You can get kicked out of college for being drunk there, you can work hungover too- generaly cause college is different everyday you have to use your brain, not much good if its dead. College is what you make it, you reap what you sow- work has boundries. So you might work harded in work...because you have to, and you obviuosly dossed in college or didn't go but if you want to do well in college you need to work really hard.

You've never had a proper job have you?

pretty-in-pink

not so much...im in college, and have done crappy p/t work (from shop assistant, to waitress to bar work to building(it was small stuff- garden walls etc) to decorating and back again). these are jobs i don't want for real. you can luck out and have good work collegues, but if you're a student you get the worst jobs, and you get to work till 8/9 when the full timers go home at 7.if you put the effort in in college i reckon its harder, but we are all biased here.

fintan

whats this overtime people keep talking about? As an office monkey, its a 7.30am to 6pm monday to friday. twenty odd days off a year.

Even if your the worlds poorest student with 20 assignments due in a week and a 20 hour a week part-time job to pay your bills, when it comes to the summer time all you have is the 20 hours a week job to worry about.... so you still end up better than this poor office monkey.

Just like to point out i studied full time and did 30 hour week part time work and would happily go back to college in the morning

sprinkles

fintan wrote:

whats this overtime people keep talking about? As an office monkey, its a 7.30am to 6pm monday to friday. twenty odd days off a year.

Even if your the worlds poorest student with 20 assignments due in a week and a 20 hour a week part-time job to pay your bills, when it comes to the summer time all you have is the 20 hours a week job to worry about.... so you still end up better than this poor office monkey.

Just like to point out i studied full time and did 30 hour week part time work and would happily go back to college in the morning

My college course was pretty much 9 - 5 every day from 1st - 4th year, with alot of handups.

However it got me a job were I work flexitime, get paid a ridiculous amount of money and occasionaly travel. Life has never been better. Saying that I'd kill to go back to college and do some meaningless arts course (no offence to anyone doing a meaningless arts course) but all the women have so much time on their hands all they do is doll themselves up, and there are alot of women. Sounds good to me.

simu

sprinkles wrote:

My college course was pretty much 9 - 5 every day from 1st - 4th year, with alot of handups.

However it got me a job were I work flexitime, get paid a ridiculous amount of money and occasionaly travel. Life has never been better. Saying that I'd kill to go back to college and do some meaningless arts course (no offence to anyone doing a meaningless arts course) but all the women have so much time on their hands all they do is doll themselves up, and there are alot of women. Sounds good to me.

Damn, can't give any more (neg) rep today (from a female Arts graduate with love).

Civilian_Target

Yeah, sometimes you do have to wish you'd done some meaningless arts course. Sure, if you didn't want to be a teacher and your daddy couldn't get you a job, you're fsked, but on the flip side, hot women : few classes. How can you lose there?