4 Ways Students Can Keep A Job Without It Affecting Their Education

Leaving school and taking up further education can be expensive, particularly if you go down the university route. Successive governments have made it much harder for students to attend university without running up debt thanks to ever-increasing tuition fees. Then there is the cost of living while you are working on your degree. Some students are lucky enough to have parents who can afford to give them money to live on, but there are more whose parents are not that wealthy. Do you need to work while studying? Here are four ways students can keep a job without it affecting their education.

Apprenticeships

With apprenticeships, you are paid a salary while you are being trained. You will have to take part in on-the-job and off-the-job training, but at the end of your time, you will have a highly thought of qualification. In fact, these days, apprentice qualifications are considered to be as good as a degree. It is not by accident that this has happened. Trusted names such as City & Guilds have worked hard with employers to raise apprenticeship standards, and a browse through their site at cityandguilds.com/apprenticeships will open your eyes to all the available options.

Apprenticeships no longer just relate to practical skills such as construction trades or car repairs. They now cover a very wide range of sectors, and you should check them all to see if there are apprenticeships in your chosen career.

Online Courses

Most universities offer online courses, and this can sometimes be the best way to get a degree. The beauty of an online course it that it lets you study at times to fit in with your lifestyle. You can hold down a job and study at the same time, and that flexibility is making online courses ever more popular.

Distance learning, as online courses are sometimes called, matches the high academic standards you would expect at a physical university. As technology has evolved, so have things like virtual classrooms where you can join with other members of the course and chat with the tutors to ask questions and discuss your coursework.

Part-Time Jobs

Part-time jobs can help a student to financially get through their studies, but they need to be careful that the hours they have to work do not clash with lectures. This is why many students take jobs in bars or restaurants, as the working hours tend to be in the evenings.  It can be good for students to get some experience of workplaces, and no matter what the work is, it shows initiative when it appears on your CV.

Finding part-time jobs is not always easy though, so you may have to look in various places, such as the university job shop or local adverts.

Freelancing

There are many opportunities for freelancing. If you have a skill, you can offer it to other people and charge for your services.  There are many websites offering work to freelancers, including work for web designers, graphic artists, SEO experts, and much more.

You will usually have a time frame within which the job needs to be completed, but as long as you meet the agreed deadline, you can choose what hours you work. As you gain more experience in freelancing, you will be able to build a profile of yourself, and that will hopefully bring in more offers of work. Most freelance work is carried out remotely, so you could find yourself completing tasks for people from all parts of the world.

Whatever your chosen career, there is a likelihood that you will need a qualification of some sort. Whether it is a degree or some other qualification you need to study for, you need to be able to survive financially while you are completing the course. We hope these four suggestions help you to achieve that.

from Finance Girl http://www.financegirl.co.uk/4-ways-students-can-keep-a-job-without-it-affecting-their-education/