Thursday, January 28, 2010

I'm really not sure about this

If you trawled through and read the roughly eighteen-hundred and forty-seven words that made up my last post, you may have noticed two points in particular:
  1. I'm doing a BA(Hons) in History this year
  2. I'm kind of looking for work at the moment
Now the job listings for the prospective Timetabling Services Office at the university are currently available (internally). I'm considering applying for one of the positions, and believe I have a reasonable chance of getting in on the basis that I have spent the last 14 months working with the software that will be used, and have had a hand in setting up the procedural processes and data configurations that will be used. There are a few advantages to having this job: a stepping stone to bigger and brighter things, work I'm familiar with, and a reasonable, reliable rate of remuneration. The obvious disadvantage is that it will take up quite a lot of time that may conflict with my studies or other life pursuits.

Now I need to decide if I can manage to work, study, and write dull blog posts after midnight.

I suppose I should look at my time constraints:
  • If I get full-time work I can quit my Saturday job, giving me a two-day weekend (and avoiding the hassle of City Council organisations amalgamating into the Auckland super-city later this year)
  • The typical week contains 168 hours
  • The typical working week is 40 hours
  • Travel time to both work and my classes is roughly ten minutes, thus fairly negligible
  • I have three papers which each have a two-hour seminar per week. I have been told I should spend at least eight hours a week preparing for each of these seminars. That's 30 hours a week
  • I should also probably do about ten hours a week on my dissertation
  • I believe that I can spend around 12 hours a weekday, and 8 hours on weekends working for either pay, or for my courses. This amounts to 76 hours per week. If I'm really really really disciplined about it
Let's take a look at a potential timetable of what my life could look like:



 This looks crowded and thoroughly unpleasant. Especially compared to  everything that I've managed to do to date (viz., be lazy, procrastinate lots, do things mere hours before they're due and sacrifice sleep in favour of blogging and planning). It would take mammoth control and discipline, perfect time management, and a shortage of unforeseen events to pull this off. Yet it also represents a good opportunity to combine study with work, or rather earning money while significantly improving future prospects.

I guess the question is: do I really hate myself enough to put myself through this?

Your suggestions and comments are welcomed.

1 comment:

  1. It looks like you'll burn yourself out before too long if you follow that

    ReplyDelete