<p>I have a question for those of you who are now out of school and are working: do you find the office to be more stressful than the classroom?</p>
<p>Personally, I do feel more pressure in the workplace than at school, although it’s a different kind of stress. When I was in school, the biggest sources of stress came from exams and class projects. In the workplace, though, such pressure comes from deadlines. In school, students can only be dismissed for academic reasons if their GPA falls below a certain point. In a career, a person can be fired or laid off for poor performance; however, this is mostly subjective to the management. As a matter of fact, I’ve seen a lot more lay-offs than academic dismissals.</p>
<p>The other thing is that I work for long hours, not to mention that my vacation time is much shorter. I started working last December; all of my younger friends have just finished school, but I still have to go to work. In a sense, having a job is more stressful. But the rewards are also better! :-)</p>
<p>I also have a few other questions for you guys:</p>
<p>1) How much do you work?
My contract is for eight hours a day, but most of my colleagues work for 10-11 hours, which I do.
How much vacation time do you get, compared to school?</p>
<h2>* There’s a joke that goes, “You know you’re out of college when… You go from 130 days of vacation time to 7.” It seems true enough, as I don’t really get any more long vacations, except at Christmas. There aren’t any spring/winter breaks, etc., and I have to work during the summer. I do know that some companies allow different hours for the summer (such as 10 hours/day with Friday off), but mine isn’t one of them. ^_^</h2>
<p>Danny
University of California, Berkeley '09 (B.S.)
St. Mary’s College of California '10 (M.S.)</p>
<p>for the most part, at school, the quality of your work only impacts you.</p>
<p>in the workplace, the quality of your work likely impacts others, sometimes substantially.</p>
<p>In college you go to class for a few hours a day. At work, you go for 8+. You also have to commute, instead of just walking somewhere at college.</p>
<p>At my summer internship, I work 8.5 hour days, with .5 for lunch. I get 4 hours of vacation per pay period. When I worked for AmeriCorps, I worked not many hours at all.</p>
<p>Well it depends on your way of thinking. I am personally not very stressed at my job because I see exactly why I need to do the work by the deadline… in school, it seemed arbitrary. Why should I rush to get a project done when I can do a much better job if I push it back by a day?</p>
<p>In school I felt like I had much less time than I do working. A school day would typically look like this for me…
Class 9:00-10:30, 10:30-12:00, 1:30-3:00; rehearsal for my performing group 5:00-7:00, meeting for that group 7:30-9:00. It was an eight hour day, but the time was spread over twelve hours, and it didn’t end til’ 9, so I was going strong for another several hours before I could sleep.
Now I work 9-6 with a one hour lunch… I leave for work at 7:30 but I’m home by 7PM, and I have no homework whatsoever, so that’s a plus.</p>
<p>To answer your questions… I work 8 hours a day, plus a one hour lunch… however if I reach a stopping point at 5PM or a little after, it’s perfectly acceptable and expected to leave then. I accrue two days off per month… granted, this time includes company holidays. This year I have six company holidays (Memorial Day, July 4th, Thanksgiving, the day after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve), which leaves me with 18 other days off. I also have the option of working remotely, so if I am sick, I can either take a day off or just work from home; if my car needs to go to the shop, I can work around it so that I don’t have to waste a vacation day just to spend two hours going to the body shop.</p>
<p>For me, I welcome the responsibilities of work because I see their purpose. If I don’t meet a deadline, I could cost a client ten million dollars, whereas if I didn’t meet an academic deadline, I could cost a professor the thought, “where is your project?” That doesn’t add stress as much as it adds motivation. It’s also nice to have a normal human being’s schedule, where people are not up until 5AM doing random work.</p>
<p>I’ve got another question: how flexible is everyone’s job?</p>
<p>I mean, it would be nice to be able to work for 14 days straight, and then get the following week off. I don’t think my company allows this, however; at least I’ve never seen any colleagues do this.</p>
<hr>
<p>Danny
University of California, Berkeley '09 (B.S.)
St. Mary’s College of California '10 (M.S.)</p>
<p>There’s nothing like having your boss scream at you for something that seems impossible to do or something that wasn’t your fault. There’s nothing like spending all of Thanksgiving or Christmas worrying about the work day that will follow. It’s definitely a different kind of stress because with school you can get away with a lot. What you’re doing only effects you so if you’re okay with being lazy, getting everything done at the last minute, only doing the minimum, or whatever, that’s perfectly okay. But if you act like that even for one day at some jobs you might be gone the next day!</p>
<p>October, I agree that being lazy at work would definitely cost you your job, but being lazy at school can also cost you as well. I used to be a very big procrastinator, and know many other’s who use this method. It leads to nothing but bad grades, increased stress, failure of tests or entire classes, which in turn leads to lost time, as well as money. Stress is a part of life. It’s all about how you deal with it. Also not all jobs are created equally. Being a park ranger for 10 hours a day, would be much more enjoyable and less stressful than being some work monkey for some corporate losers who make money off of shysting people’s honest earned money and creating turmoil.</p>
<p>I’m still in school, but I can’t imagine work being more stressful than school. I had 13 hour days 4 days a week (8 am to 9 pm), 8 hours on Fridays (8 am to 4 pm), and 4 hours on Sundays (1 pm- 5pm) in the spring between classes, undergrad research, and my part-time job.</p>
<p>Now in the summer I’m still juggling the same three things but my days are only 11 hours long 3 days a week and 4 hours a day twice a week , thankfully. So I don’t get where you get the idea that you get the summer off while you’re in school. Maybe if you’re a slacker…</p>
<p>Spending more than 60 hours a week between classes, work, and research during the regular school year and then having to come home and spend 20-30 hours a week studying leaves me with pretty much just enough time to sleep, eat, shower, etc, with very little free time. I suppose it’s possible that work could be more stressful than this, but if it genuinely is I’m not looking forward to it at all!</p>
<p>You can make either one far more stressful depending personal choices. </p>
<p>If you want a job like banking, where you work 80 hour weeks, or surgery, where you take people’s lives into your hands, finding a school experience that is equally stressful will be difficult. On the other hand, compare a regular 40 hour per week office job to a school schedule with several part-time jobs and a 30 credit schedule. Beyond this, the question also depends on your attitudes toward work or school, and how difficult you make the experience for yourself. If you are gunning for a promotion, that will make work seem more stressful. If you aren’t happy with A-'s, school’s going to suck…</p>
<p>Personally, I am less stressed out at work than I was at school. I have a great paying job with reasonable hours. I preform well and am very happy. School on the other hand was stressful because I made it so. I pushed myself to finish college in 2 years and get a masters degree by 21. At the same time, I always held at least one part-time job. I was also happy in school, but it was significantly more work.</p>
There aren’t any spring/winter breaks, etc., and I have to work during the summer. I do know that some companies allow different hours for the summer (such as 10 hours/day with Friday off), but mine isn’t one of them. ^_^</h2>