Kailie Mitchell is among one of the many students at Bucks County Community College that work, go to school, and play sports. She currently works at LA fitness and plays women basketball and soccer. If going to school and working was hard imagine trying to fit being an athlete in your schedule.
“It’s hard and since I’m dedicated to sports I don’t get to work as much as I want. Sports take a lot of my time,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell starts her day off with school at 9 a.m., after two classes she takes time to do some homework before getting ready for practice. Some days she has work before practice and some days she work after practice. When she works the night shift she doesn’t get off until 11 p.m.
“After sports I’m too tired to do anything. I have to really force myself to do my homework. When I am too tired to do my work you start to see it in my grades. Eventually I get stressed because I don’t want to fail,” said Mitchell.
Shawn Brown is a student at Bucks who is struggling with work and school. He works many hours and is one of the rare cases of students who work more then they go to school.
“I didn’t want to work more than school but I lack support at home so I have to find ways to provide for myself and that involves working a lot,” Brown said.
“Most days I don’t even want to do any school work after my shift because of how tired I be, but I want to be successful so I have to. I started getting really stressed so I went to counseling to help. It’s tough,” added Brown.
Using government census data, ABODO found that 52 percent of college students are working at least 27 weeks per year. That goes to show that working is a big part of college students lives. People who can’t handle the work load usually get stressed and that can’t open ways to a lot of health problems. Patrick Howard is a student who says he has had problems with mental health.
“It started as stress then got to the point of depression because didn’t see help. My grades became worse and worse and that caused my depression. I started to lose weight and my mom noticed and made me get help. Working a lot and going to school full time is a tough thing to do but at our age we have to do it,” Howard shared.
College students aren’t just out there partying. They are students who are responsible and are mentally having hard times trying to keep it up. There are students who are stressed and depressed and you wouldn’t even know. There is nothing wrong with working and going to school but trying to balance it is hard and that’s why schools have counseling in place in order to help student cope with it.