On Balancing Career & College...

An anonymous reader asks: "Hi folks. Some advice please - I've been in university twice already and quit both times - the first due to lack of interest in the course and the second a combination of lack of interest and work pressures. The second time round, I started a tech company and it's now three years old and doing OK. I am now seriously thinking about going back to Uni to get a degree (for real this time ;-). Is anyone out there successfully juggling running a company and studying at the same time? How do you juggle the two without hampering either due to lack of the right amount of attention?"

Comments

All I know is . . .

[Gabrill]

No one I've talked to that's gotten their degree after they've gotten their career started has regretted it.

Similar Boat

[jchawk]

I am in a similar boat. I work 40 hours a week at night, and go to school during the day. I also like to go out once in a while, and I have a full time girlfriend.

First if you are with someone, they are going to need to understand that school and work are going to have to come pretty close to first. What this means is, you might not be able to be there all the time. (If they love you, they'll understand).

Find a mix of classes that work for you. Obviously if you are going for computer science you don't want to take 5 upper level computer science classes in the same semester. Take 1 and take a few ( 2 - 4 ) other general elective classes that you need. This should get you through the fall and spring, while knocking out your gen-ed requirements.

Then continue on with school throw the summer. This time take 2 computer science classes.

A schedule like this should get your through, while still allowing you a wee little bit of free time.

Keep in mind that you are going to live a very very structured life for the next few years as you work towards your degree. Sleep will become something you value, because you won't be able to do it as much as you'd like. Make sure you get 1 day off a week, or every 2 weeks. This is important, because it keeps you sane and the g/f happy.

Just my thoughts, and what works for me.

Re:Similar Boat

[lpontiac]

you might not be able to be there all the time. (If they love you, they'll understand)

But maybe they'll need you to be there more than you are. If you love them, you'll understand.

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not attacking you and if things are working for you and your partner, that's great :P But I think there are some people who couldn't cope with that. That wouldn't mean that they're at fault, or that they don't love you.

Re:Similar Boat

[Guylhem]

Mixing classes is not the best idea.

I'm studying medicine in France (entering my 6th and final year - studies are a bit longer here), running my company (running various website like thera.info and free software consulting), managing several opensource projects (the LDP on tldp.org) and keeping time for my girlfriend (khady.net) and my passion (movies)

How can I do that? Quite simple: I closely manage my time. A palm or other PDA is obviously needed. Give a time slot for everything that needs one. Don't be afraid to spend 15 to 30 minutes per day on scheduling if you have many things to do that day. Get the work done - that's your goal. Scheduling is a way. Cutting in the unneeded is a good complement (do you really need to watch TV? Do you really need to attend that stupid class? Do you really need to do this 1'000 contract?)

Every morning, I go to the hospital (7-12). Every afternoon, I either study or work. (1-8)

Every night (9-11), I go and see a movie or stay with my significant other.

Sounds simple? It's not. The hardest part is mixing studies and work. You *have* to be selective. I can not offer to spend time going to classes. I study in my books, and I pratice what I've been studying in the morning. A good book is worth hours of classes. If they are not mandatory and you can do your exams without going to some classes, skip them. Your goal is to *learn*, not spend time at lectures. You know the subject? Go and do something else. Work, studies, or private. But be honest - don't just skip classes. Go to the ones you need to increase your knowledge.

You also have to be very selective for your work. I don't take a contract if I'm not sure I can efficiently do it and make a profit. That means I must know the topic (say, network administration) and have a backup solution (a friend I'll pay if some exam is suddently scheduled) so that the contract will be done. The client satisfaction is #1 priority. Financial profit is #2.

Now your private life. The previous post is very right : you must sleep well. Don't cut on sleep. Take naps if it helps. If you are tired you are unefficient. While other people may afford that, you can't because you have too many things to manage. You can take one day off every week as suggested, or take every night depending on your work load. I just did 3 weeks in a row (no nights) so I'm now taking 2 days.

Finally, be sure to love and understand your partner. Explain what you are doing and how. Explain when you are available. And surprise her! Finding free time when you thought you couldn't is good. Using that time to offer flowers or unexpected vacation is better ;-)

Until now, it has been working fine. The first months where the hardest- and then I just had work, free software and studies. Gradually I managed to add stuff, little by little. And I even found time to do a MS in biological sciences!

What works for me may not work for you, but email me privately (slashdot@externe.net) if you need some help.

Sleep 7 hours.

[Perdo]

Never give up sleep time for study time. During sleep your mind makes the transfer to long term memory. If you are not sleeping 7 hours, you might as well not study at all that day.

And get a good outside accountant. Nothing will go wrong with your business that you cannot fix by delegating, except your in house accountant stealing from you.

So, study, sleep, delegate and don't let the mice play while you are away.

Part Time

[NickB2]

Do a few classes a term.
The rule of thumb is 2 hours coursework for every hour in class. So figure out how much time you want to spend a week, and do those many hours/3 until you graduate.

Focus on courses you really care about -- I'm much happier now that I've left CE for political Sciene and History. I'd do this stuff anyway, now I get credit for it.
You should realize that one Liberal Arts degree is as good as another, if your passion is something that is technically useless (Philosophy, Art history) you should major in that. You'll do well, and nobody really cares what the words on the degree are.

You may be able to save time by taking courses you already know -- if your business ws web design you might want to take a course on PERL. If you already know it you'll do well without effort; and if you don't you'll be doing training you should do anyway.

In short, you should focus on the shit you'd do even if you weren't in school. I read about politics for fun, so I do PoliSci. I don't do CompSci because I've never gotten around to reading any of my dozen or so programming books. You should also manage your time wisely -- but you have a business so tyou know about that.

Re:Part Time

[3141]

Not to be objectionable or anything, but there is no way that Philosophy can be considered useless. It's mostly logic applied to real or theoretical situations, useful for anyone. Not to mention it can help to broaden your mind (also useful).

You're right about one thing though, people really don't care about the words on the degree. Many market traders have degrees in Astrophysics. It doesn't matter whether you think about binary star systems or binary code, it's the thinking that matters.

It's called 'discipline'

[djupedal]

...and it is defined as being able to clearly remember your goal at all times. Paper chasing has it's merits...such as a higher salary than someone who didn't finish the chase.

Without it, you are doomed to a life as a semi-pro.

Pick something and stay with it. (haven't we been around this tree once already this year?)

Why do you want a degree so much?

[fruey]

Hey. You've dropped out twice on university already due to a self proclaimed lack of interest. You have your own successful company.

I went to University in order to get a good job. Now I have one, I dream of running my own company. You have your own company which by your admission is doing OK. Ask yourself why it is you really want to go back to school for a third time. You are older and have a business to run now. What could a degree change in your situation? I could understand if you were in a job and a degree could help your career prospects, but here that does not appear to be the case.

You need to do some soul searching. Don't get caught up in intellectual snobbery where you (or other people make you) think that getting a degree is somehow going to change you as a person or change the way people look at you. Don't be ashamed if people working for you have better qualifications that you do. The bottom line is that they are working for you, not you for them!

I think the current western trend to work hard, always biting into your free time, is the wrong way to live. That's just my opinion. If you think you can run a company and go to school and still have a fulfilled life (family, home, and love is what it's really all about, not your salary) then you go ahead. I will be the first to congratulate you if you succeed. But perhaps now the thing to think about is why you feel you need a degree if you are already running your own company. Strengthen your character and your interpersonal relationships, and take some professional qualifications / courses related to your line of work if you want, but why torture yourself about going back to school?

Also, bear in mind that a lot of responses here so far are probably from college students. They think (and they are right, from their perspective right now) that school is the best thing in the world. But school is not about getting a degree, it's about getting independance and working out a number of work ethic structures, logical thought processes, prioritisations, etc. The degree is just part of the process, and the better a degree you get is due to how well you organise, communicate, and learn (in an abstract sense) to use tools at your disposal.

So if you really feel you need a degree for your own self esteem, then go for it. But don't do it to the detriment of everything else, because you may find that if you ever get the degree, that your life does not change significantly. Anyone who thinks they are better than you just because they have a degree and you don't is clearly wrong, but you may not be old enough (or they may not be) to realise it. Perhaps something else is really at the root of your problems, and you need to search your heart to find out what your life priorities really are.

Re:Why do you want a degree so much?

[Vito]

Wow. This post is one of the saddest, most disheartening things I've ever read. And the worst part is that you're pinning your own disillusionment and bitterness over your own life choices onto someone else, whose situation is entirely different. Don't deny someone the ability to, yes, indeed, change their life for the better, just because you took the road most travelled.

Most young people attend college expecting one of two things:

• That they will find some sort of miraculous passion to define them as a person, lead them into a fulfilling career, and thereby achieve happiness.
• That they get a piece of paper that will get them a job that pays more than flipping burgers, but may not suck less.

Snap judgements say you wanted the first, and ended up with the second.

When I graduated high school, I didn't want to go to college. So what that it was what you were supposed to do? So what that most jobs require that piece of paper? I don't want a job anyway. And yes, I got tons of criticism from everyone I knew for my choice. Screw them, I said!

It came down to the fact that I didn't have the foggiest clue what I wanted to do with myself. Do the same job in the same field for 40 years? Or even different jobs in the same field? Bor-ing. And what's that? You can't just take any arbitrary classes at college? You have to pick a "major," and that ties you into a certain giant batch of required courses, most of which are dull and perfunctory? No, thanks! No time for drama courses for CS majors? No ability to take advanced EE courses without actually being an EE major? Lame! I think I'll go the library intsead, thank you. I wanted to go to university to LEARN THINGS. Not to "prepare myself for the outside world." What bullshit. College is as close to the outside world as McDonalds chicken nuggets are to actual chickens.

So after high school, I said, "To hell with school," and got myself a job as a consultant for a well-connected local firm, doing work for IBM and Lotus, as well as large local companies creating Notes/Domino "solutions." It helped that I enjoyed 60-80 hour work weeks, and was a stereotypical whiz kid, as I'm sure most of Slashdot was/is.

A couple years in, I quit and started my own business, entirely self-funded (yay saving money), moved into a large, expensive apartment, and proceeded to drive the company into the ground in about two years. Notes to self: do not take on projects larger than you can handle, and always have good communication between your employees and your clients.

After another ~two years, I'm now completely debt-free (I didn't declare bankruptcy, and helped out my ex-employees as much as was possible), and attending classes full-time at the University of Texas at Austin. I'm a liberal arts student with no declared major, looking for a classic liberal arts education, and taking sixteen hours of very different courses. I'm working on a documentary, auditioning for theatre productions, taking dance classes, and working 20+ hours a week part-time doing consulting. And I hang out with friends, go out on dates, attend parties, bar-hop, etc. And getting 6-8 hours of sleep a night. Nothing is suffering thanks to careful time management and a serious desire to actually be able to do all of these things at the expense of none. It's a lot of work to make it all fit, and spur-of-the-moment plans often require much mental jockeying, but I do it, and I'm damn happy about it.

Note: Replies intent on making jokes with punchlines similar to "Liberal arts students ask, 'Would you like fries with that?'" should Google for the definition of a classic liberal arts education beforehand.

So, yes, I'm a college student. I think attending school now was the best decision I've made, because now I want to be here, and I know what I want to study (even if it is just "anything and everything"), and I'm savvy enough to be able to make everything fit. I'm not doing it to please my parents, or because it's what you're "supposed" to do, but because I want to learn new things, broaden my horizons, give myself a strong cultural and historical base upon which to better understand the world around me. I want to learn new languages and religions in an environment that will help me foster that desire, surrounded by people who want to do the same. I want to study art and architecture so I can go to a museum and be able to know why other people think painting X is so important, even if I think it still looks like crap. I want to learn to write better than using huge run-on sentences, so people will mod me up just because I'm grammatically correct. I want to do all of these things because I think they'll make me a better person, better able to appreciate and understand the world, people and events around me.

A lot of my friends graduated college over the past few years. All of them took the "career" path, but only a single one is happy with it. The rest all have the same vague, lost, unsure, slightly disillusioned look in their eyes that they had when they graduated high school, and that saddens me. People here tell me it's amazing how much I enjoy all of this, even though I have no idea what I want to do. I tell them, that's the best part.

The poster wants to go back to school. Perhaps it's for the same reasons that I have. Perhaps it's because he feels like less of a man without that piece of paper. The point is that when you're in our shoes, it's not a decision you come to lightly. Don't tear someone down because you weren't able to say "No, thanks" after high school. Just like it's never too late to save some money and start your company if you really want to, it's never too late to go back to school and make it work.

To the poster, I say, go back, and take something else. Don't take courses directly related to what your company does, because you already know most of it through practical application. Dollars to donuts says this is why you're getting bored. Instead, take things that will broaden your horizons and give you new insights into your personal universe. Don't take self-paced or online courses; get into the classroom, sit at the front, and interact with the professor and other students. Learn something new.

Re:Why do you want a degree so much?

[zerocool^]

I think attending school now was the best decision I've made, because now I want to be here, and I know what I want to study.

I agree completely. This is one of the best posts I've ever read on slashdot.

I started to become dissalusioned with High School (public school) my senior year. A.P. Computer Science was a joke, so I stopped caring. I made a 4 on the AP test with out ever looking at the case study. My grades in the class: AAB B(exam), then CDD F(exam). I didn't care. I was ready to be out of school. I was one of the smartest kids in school. I wanted to get to college, to get on with life.

So I go to college, start working on an electrical engineering degree. Freshman year. All of a sudden, I'm not the smart kid anymore. I realize, hey, I've got to study. Then, I started studying. I realized what I'm doing sucks. I hate it. I don't want to be an enginner for the rest of my life! Where's the creativity? Where's the fun? Is it all deadlines and straight lines? Do I really have to write my letters 3/4 of one square high, in "small caps" on engineering graph paper? So I stopped going to class. I failed most things, or didn't do very well.

After my first year, I was on Academic Suspension, with my 1.67 GPA. No school for a year for me. So I went home. I became fiercely independant, swearing up and down that college was useless, and I was going to do for myself. I got an apartment that was costing me $365 a month in rent (my part), sharing it with a guy who I barely knew, and paying for everything myself. I went back to my old job full time, working at Best Buy. I was making $10.50/hr. This is good money for someone in central Virginia who is 19. Then the bottom fell out. My girlfriend dumped me cause I had no ambition. My roommate started growing Marijuana. I moved out cause I didn't want any part of it, but I was still responsible for my part of the rent. I moved back in with my parents. I began to hate my job. I hated working nights, working ALL weekends, closing friday night until 1:30 AM, and then being back at 7AM sat. I HATED retail. I hated lying to people to make them buy useless shit.

So I went back to college, with no plan of study in mind. I was lost, but I wanted something. I needed a degree. Then I really found something that I loved. I just figured, I watch enough of the History channel, why not major in History? So that's what I'm doing, and I plan to be a high school history teacher. I'm having so much fun, I have new friends and a new girlfriend, life is great. I'm tracking to go to education gradschool after I get my history undergrad. I'm facinated by everything I'm doing.

Now, my job here is Unix network administration. I like the job. But I certainly don't want to do it all my life. This is something that I think slashdot kids need to think about. Just cause you're the computer whiz doesn't mean you're going to have to do computer stuff when you "grow up". I've been thinking of ways I can use computers to help me teaching. But ... find something that makes you happy. Don't do computers "because". Because is the worst reason to spend thousands of dollars and 4-5 years of your life.

~Will

Re:Degree

[guybarr]

I just read books on what I want to learn and leave it at that.

That's the GOOD thing about a degree, it makes you learn some important stuff you did not want to learn. It also makes you solve problems, not just read the books for pleasure. Both are a good thing (TM).

I have nothing, along those lines, to prove to myself. I have a very successful software company and quite fulfilled.

But a degree is, in career terms, like having an insurance. What will happen if your company will fail (shit DOES happen ...), and you will need to look for a job ? finding a job is definately easier with a degree. Will your children be any less hungry then because you are fulfiled today ?