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Working while in graduate school full-time? - 6/28/2009 2:47:28 AM
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solo_soprano23
Posts: 2082
Joined: 4/27/2005
From: I'm a Southern girl
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I just graduated with a bachelor of science in biology about a month ago. I was going to work in my field for a while because I don't have much research experience, but I ran across a clinical laboratory sciences Master's program at the university that I want to go to in order to obtain a PhD. I was originally going to take a year or so and do research, and however long to take a few more undergrad courses before applying for the doctorate. Now, I'm thinking I can try to get a Master's instead of doing that... and it's in my field and interest. (E.g. I'm not just getting the Master's for no reason at all, but my ultimate goal has always been the PhD/terminal degree.)
The problem is that this program offers no financial aid at all, including being an assistant, etc. The class layout is jam-packed, but I'll need to find a way to have income of some kind while I'm working on the degree. I'm wondering if it's feasible to be in graduate school full-time for a biomedical degree and work without compromising grades/sleep. Has anyone had experience with this?
(Maybe not, but it's worth a shot  . I'm just curious as to how others did it.)
_____________________________
For God, For Learning, Forever.
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RE: Working while in graduate school full-time? - 6/28/2009 8:40:43 AM
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artemis
Posts: 475
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First, congratulations on graduating  Second, I haven't personally worked during graduate school (well, I haven't even gone to graduate school!), but my husband did. He spent 5 years in seminary (120 hour program for his ThM) and he worked part time through 4 of the 5 years. 2 years he was a teacher (taught 4 classes instead of 7, like the full time teachers taught), 1 year he sold car insurance, and 1 year he pastored a church-plant (this also counted as his internship for school, so he got 2 hours credit). The one year that he didn't work, he took 17 hours of course work in the Spring semester. When he was working, he usually put in 25-35 hours a week, depending on the particular job, and took 12 hours of classes.
He survived by having me do as much of the housework as possible (not complaining... that's just the only way he could do that much studying and working). Basically, all he was expected to do was go to work, go to school and study-- I did everything else. He also never took classes during the summer and he would usually crash for the first 2 weeks of every vacation. It was hard for both of us to have him work and go to school full time. I wish I had made enough money that he could just go to school. Or I wish he hadn't had such a ridiculously long program so he could have gone to school part-time. Mostly I'm just glad he graduated and it's over 
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RE: Working while in graduate school full-time? - 6/28/2009 6:43:07 PM
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solo_soprano23
Posts: 2082
Joined: 4/27/2005
From: I'm a Southern girl
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I think each semester will be about 12-16 hours, including the summers. I will probably still live at home unless I marry, which might happen (it's complicated, but I told my bf I'd marry him if I could get my health taken care of). I'm just wondering where to come up w/the money for tuition plus gas/food/necessities. I'm planning to work this year and trying to save up; plus, all the deadlines have passed and I still need to study for the GRE more. I just wonder, when there are no options for aid and one is full time, how they make ends meet. I see some students be TA's, etc.; but they made it clear that this program doesn't even offer that. It just seems hard to be in school full time for most of the daylight hours, then try to work while trying to pass. Lol. I'd go part time, but I plan to get a doctorate after this, and hopefully a post-doc... and that by themselves can take up to 10-12 years... so I'd rather not spend four years on a two-year Master's. But, at least the doctorate training (in this field usually) has a stipend and paid tuition/insurance. This master's has almost nothing at all in the way of those things.  That's one of the reasons I'd wanted to go straight on, but I know I'm lacking research exp. (I have some, but need more) and few more classes. Choices, choices.
_____________________________
For God, For Learning, Forever.
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RE: Working while in graduate school full-time? - 6/29/2009 8:17:24 AM
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artemis
Posts: 475
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quote:
ORIGINAL: solo_soprano23
I will probably still live at home
That would definitely make it more do-able, because you wouldn't have as much non-school/non-work stuff to do (cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping, etc.)
quote:
I just wonder, when there are no options for aid and one is full time, how they make ends meet.
At my husband's seminary, scholarships were ONLY available to students who took a full load (12+ hours) and were working. So most of the full time students also had jobs. In fact, a lot of them had stay-at-home-wives and a couple of kids, so they were working full time jobs while going to school full time. I don't know how they did it, but they did.
You might be able to find a job that would allow you to study while you're working. For example, if you can arrange your schedule so that you only have class 2-3 days a week, you could substitute teach on the off days... if you specify that you only want to sub in jr. high and high school classes, a lot of the teachers will leave movies or worksheets and you can study while the students do their busy work My sister worked for a nanny service and she mostly took jobs at night, so the kids were sleeping while she was working and she did a lot of studying then. In undergrad, my husband was an AV tech and he had to be on-call while he was at work, but didn't actually have to do anything about 1/3 of the time
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