Is it possible to work fulltime and study full time mechanical engineering

[tj00343]

Is it possible to work full-time and study mechanical engineering (full credit) at the same time ,How much pressure will I face through out the program ,any specific courses which are specifically challenging ,Because I finished my first semester(full credit) while working and barely found enough time to study ,everyone keeps saying that I will not be able to continue fulltime work with full credit university ,i need to what I'm up against to see if i should think about a loan.
Thnx in advance

 

[fasterthanjoao]

I having a feeling you already know what the responses are likely to be on such a question. For clarity, I would say that route is just a recipie for disaster.

The commitment you should be putting into any study subject will be more than the equivalent hours of a full time job. Can you work 100 hours a week? For how long?

It may technically be possible but I'd have no doubt that your results and overall understanding will suffer. I speak from partial experience, I had to work throughout my degree and was generally pulling more than 20 hours per week in whatever jobs I had going at the time. I definitely confess that this had a detrimental impact on my studies: but I had no option of loans etc.

Having said that, that is my experience. You know yourself better than I do, if you find that you effortlessly understand anything that's taught to you, then by all means, go ahead.

 

[fasterthanjoao]

barely found enough time to study

This should be key in your decision.

 

[Jack21222]

If you can find a job that allows you to study on the job, then sure. They're few and far between, though.

I work as a mattress salesman. I'm the only person in the store most of the time. I may see 3 or 4 customers over the course of an 11 hour day. The rest of the time is mine.

Something like a night shift security guard might give you that same kind of freedom, but I wouldn't know that from first-hand experience.

Other than that, I'd say drop some hours at work.

 

[Goldbeetle]

If you can avoid that, do not do it.

 

[||spoon||]

I am going into my 3rd year of Mech Engineering this coming semester. Last semester i was enrolled in uni full-time and employed in 2 separate jobs (casual) near my home. It takes me about 1.5-2 hours to travel to and from uni every day on top of work time.
I got High Distinctions in all of my subjects.
So, i think it's possible, but i don't think i would actually recommend full-time work on top of full-time uni study. At least not for Mech Eng. You should know whether you will be able to keep it up...

As for particular subjects... as i said i have only finished 2 years of my degree but i think the subjects are just bound to get harder. So if you could barely study for your previous subjects, you may not find enough time for your upcoming ones.

Why not just study part-time? or even just delay one subject a semester if you can?

 

[Dembadon]

Your first year may not be bad, but after that you will need a significant amount of time devoted to studying and projects.

My .02:

Currently, I am working full time (40-50 hours per week) at a small, private company. There is always something to be working on here; the only "spare time" I have is barely long enough to make a post here and there on this forum throughout the day.

I am also enrolled part-time at the university, pursuing a B.Sc. in Engineering Physics. I am taking 9 credits this semester and I have plenty to do! If I would have taken a full load this semester I don't think that I'd have been able to devote as much time as I would have liked to each class.

This is the schedule that works for my life. The circumstances and issues you may face will likely be totally different. My suggestion would be to enroll part-time at first, and then add courses if you feel you can handle a heavier workload.

 

[mmg0789]

It depends on how well you can handle stress. I'm a 3rd year EE student and I had an internship last semester where i worked 20 hours/week and took full time course load and it was definitely a pain. I was extremely burned out by the end of the semester and would not want to go through that again! My advice is: choose the easiest possible classes you can and limit your work hours. If it looks like it's going to be hard either way, you should try to concentrate on school. Taking out a loan is not too bad and if you do good in your classes, you can apply for a few scholarships and not even depend on loans for future semesters. Good Luck.

 

[tj00343]

Thanx all ,really gave me sum perspective