let me tell you I am so ready for this
fight this weekend I'm not gonna be able
to watch it live because I'll be headed
wedding but if you Connor fight is just
going to be amazing
personally I think that
and that's why I think he's gonna win
personally but that's not what this
video is about I could go on and on
talking about that all day but that's
not the focus of this video today we're
going to be talking about working full
time alongside your computer science
degree and in all honesty if you're not
pursuing a computer science degree this
can be applied to any college just
working full time while going to school
full time and as you all know I like to
talk about my personal experience so
let's talk about the back story of how I
worked full time while I pursue my
computer science degree it all started
when I graduated high school I wasn't
even planning on going to college and
all honesty I had a job essentially
lined up I just need to wait for a
particular opening because you know they
can't just hire me if there's not a spot
open but in the meantime I got this
in-between job where as that company got
acquired by a bigger company there's a
whole lot of semantics there that we're
not going to go into but I got promoted
to this title of Technical Sales
Specialist which allowed me to travel
all around the eastern seaboard selling
this industrial equipment there were a
lot of lessons learned in that job and
I'm forever grateful for that
opportunity that was given to me however
I decided somewhere along the road that
I really wanted to go to college
so what I did is enrolled in online
classes at the local community college I
had a full-time course load meanwhile I
was traveling and working this full-time
job I was doing this for about a year
and a half until I finally started
taking computer science courses over Oh
to you
I started off online there because I was
still working and then I finally
transferred over and had just a blanket
full-time student only semester over at
ODU and although I mentioned being a
full-time student and a full-time worker
I'm not going to really compare those
because I was just doing general study
classes however for almost half of my
computer science career within ODU I
worked a full-time job and after I
discussed my experiences working
alongside school we're gonna compare the
few because I've experienced quite a few
different scenarios with well we'll get
into it my very first job during ODU was
my NASA internship when I was full-time
at NASA it was the summer and I took to
either six or 12-week accelerated
courses as you know normal courses are
generally 16 weeks so it really means
that you have to focus in if you're
taking one of these six eight or twelve
week courses my necess kejal was kind of
leaning it sort of like eight to four so
typical hours and then I also had to
drive through the HRBT to NASA and home
from NASA so that was like 45 minutes
each way for the commute which you know
that equates to an hour and thirty
minutes so if we tally that up I'm at
work for about eight hours I'm in the
car for about an hour and a half and
then when I come home I have to work on
all of my school work in those
accelerated courses obviously it's not
the whole entire summer since it's only
six or twelve weeks but it'll still a
lot of work to get done in that short
period of time and in all honesty I
didn't really find it that difficult the
main reason for this was because when I
worked at that NASA internship they had
a particular set of jobs for me to
complete over the three-month internship
and after the first week I also on track
to complete that not in three months but
in three weeks so they essentially
pulled me aside and said slow down there
their lingo their motto was essentially
don't work yourself out of a job and I
didn't want to work myself out of this
internship so that's what I did is I
slowed down but I don't like to work
slow so what I did was I worked in
Sprint's and no not like those typical
agile development Sprint's that everyone
knows and loves I worked in like literal
Sprint's where I would work work work
and then I would take it easy and then
I'll work work work and then I would
take it easy because like I said I don't
want to just do everything slow whatever
it may be a lot of the work I was
working on servers and whatnot so I
didn't want to just work real slow I
wanted to get the work done maybe work
on one and then get that done and then
sit back and do whatever I wanted so
what I could do was do my schoolwork and
that was that just made things so much
easier because instead of working a
whole entire eight hours then an hour
and a half for the commute and then work
on all my schoolwork at home I could
just do it in between those sprints and
I could essentially have all or most of
my homework done by the time I get home
and to be honest with you I had so much
free time that's when I actually started
my youtube channel that was in the
summer of 2016 so now let's fast-forward
to the end of summer where I said
farewell to my team and I hopped
directly into my fall classes as well as
my fall coop coop at Norfolk Southern
however this time around I had five 16
week courses and although they aren't
accelerated courses
were stretched out it was a much heavier
course load and what I found out by the
end of the semester much harder classes
than I took the previous summer when I
was at Norfolk Southern I worked from 8
to 5 and those generally 30-minute
commute each way so that's an hour and
all of my classes except for one were
online where that exception was a night
class you don't like at NASA I had to
work every single minute while I was at
Norfolk Southern which I like because I
don't like to be bored at work but this
also meant less time during my work
hours for my schoolwork it's make a long
story short I'm just gonna read
essentially what my daily schedule was I
would wake up at 7 you're ready for work
leave by 7:30 get to work by 8:00 work
until 5 getting home around 5:40 because
traffic in the afternoons were worse
some days go to the gym then work on
school work in YouTube afterwards until
1:00 to 2:00 a.m. sleep for five to six
hours and do it all again the next day
it completely drained me I had barely
any free time on the weekends I had a
little bit more but it's odd to be
conscious of all my schoolwork and if
you go back to the videos I made during
the fall of til it's 16 you can see just
how tired I was like in my face how I
looked and how I spoke that was due to
that schedule now let's fast-forward to
the spring semester I was still in
school but I decided to not work
anything and just focus on schoolwork
and focus a bit on YouTube and during
that semester Norfolk Southern actually
invited me back that's how a lot of
these coops run where you'll go work for
them from one semester go to school for
one semester work for them for one
semester so on and so forth and this
time around I wasn't going to make the
same mistake as a fall semester and
thinking I can handle full-time work and
full-time school on really difficult
courses because I know just how
difficult these courses will be so
basically what I did is I took the two
previous work experiences and mash them
together so at NASA I had two
accelerated courses online in Norfolk
Southern I knew I wasn't going to be
able to do any of my schoolwork during
the actual work day so I worked 8:00 to
5:00 and then after work I worked on
YouTube and I worked on those two
accelerated courses when they were in
session and although this wasn't as easy
as the NASA semester it was much easier
than the first Norfolk Southern semester
and it made for a decent balance for how
much work had to be done and I only tell
you all these stories because I want to
show you that I've experienced all
different types of working full-time
while going to school which brings me to
my question for you and that is does
this sound like something that you can
or want to handle I mean I gave you
three different semesters one was a
breeze the other took over my whole
entire life and then the last was like
it was a fine balance for what it was my
personal conclusion is if I needed to
work full-time and to be a full-time
student I would take the minimal amount
of courses which is generally twelve
credits which that'll equate generally
to four courses I would do my best to
make sure all four of those courses
aren't the most difficult courses I've
ever had I would try to have at least
one or two easier courses in the mix and
then I would hope for a job that gives
you a little bit of leeway so you may be
able to work on your schoolwork during
the actual job a lot of jobs actually
say yeah we know your students so go
ahead and work on it my conclusion for
you is undetermined because you know
your situation schedule and discipline
much more than me so you should do your
best to be realistically self-aware and
determine what you can and can't handle
maybe you don't know what you can't
handle sometimes you need to risk it to
see where your threshold is between you
know having a well-balanced semester
into having a semester that is
absolutely taken over your life and a
lot of times the result of that will be
one of two things if not both poor work
experience in other words you're not
doing your work to the best of your
ability which doesn't give a good taste
in the company's mouth because you seem
to be slacking but in reality you're
just exhausted or failing your classes
and although those two don't sound like
ideal situations at all just know that
from negative experiences you're able to
learn so if you do have to risk it and
maybe you fail one class here or
something of course that's not ideal at
least you will learn from it grow from
it and then you'll know better for the
future good luck on your future
endeavors I hope you found something
valuable out of this video until next
time guys have a good one peace
[Music]
you