Fatherhood and Higher Education

[eddiegotsole]

Definitely a unique challenge to manage going to school to earn my degree, while working full time and raising my son.  The hardest part is managing the time to study and complete my assignments.  I find that I wind up turning in my assignments at the last minute, but then don't do any of my readings.  The professors will randomly ask questions about the readings so its just a matter of time that I'm going to get busted.  But it is what it is!  I can't do it all, so its a wonder that I can even complete my assignments!

The last class I would have finished with an A but I didn't have the time to complete one of the final assignments so I wound up with a B- , still not a bad grade considering, but I will take it!  That was well spent quality time with my wife and son, so I will take a hit on my grade (Hey, I still passed!!!)

Any of you going through this currently, or have gone through this previously?

[eddiegotsole]

I'm starting a new class tonight, but its involved with my Business Major so it shouldn't be so bad (re: boring).

[tjr42px]

Been there. It's tough. I was right where you were; turning things in last minute, even requesting a few extensions. My program was pretty good about it. I was up front with professors though. They knew I was working 25-30 hours a week at an internship (required by program) with a 45-60 minute commute each way and working 20 hours a week ( required to afford to go) plus classes. My work was also flexible. I worked four ten hour days and either a few hours from home on the day I stacked all my classes or I left work early to go to class and would go in early the other days.

What type of program? College and grad school assign insane amounts of reading that you can't possibly do all of for every class even if you didn't have kids, a job, frankly a life. I got good at reading only what is necessary. Skimming, reading the summary of articles, quickly searching for meta analysis or summary articles that gave me a general understanding of something to bullshit in class and then focus for an exam or paper. Best advice I can give is this:

1) you can't do it all. So if you are like me and find yourself doing nothing because you are overwhelmed, the choice is easy. Spend time with your family and try not to feel guilty about it. If I studied instead I didn't retain anything in those moments anyway so I felt guilty for not being with my wife and child since I wasn't productive.

2) If you know you'll need to do a capstone, thesis, or dissertation...pick your topic early and start writing all your papers for every class on that topic. You won't be able to just jam them together in the end, but at that point it's just editing and by the time you "should be starting it" your lit review is done.

Depending on your program. A PASS is as good as anything else. My quality of life drastically shifted when I realized this and I still passed everything. I focused more on what I found interesting and useful in class and just logged the rest in the "in case I come across this in the future I have some resources" pile. I used to think - wow I would be insanely smart about so many things if I did all the readings. Quickly I realized I couldn't remember most of it anyway. Lol!

Hope you enjoyed your nap, I mean class. Haha.