Part time job during university years

[Silverfoxlady]

Hi all,

My daughter is looking to go to university next year for maths. My DH gets a good wage but we have lots of children (5DCs) so this doesn’t mean much for day to day spends.

She currently has a part-time retail job, and we are hoping that she can carry on while she is at university to cover her food and spends (around £400 a month minimum).

We both worked when we were students ourselves (a long time ago), but all the university students we talked to said it wasn’t advised. We are very perplexed, as we couldn’t have gone ourselves if we didn’t work.

Does anyone have any advice on this? Do your children work while at university?

We have another DC starting the year after, and so this is a tough problem. I might have to get a second job at the weekend while DH looks after our toddler.

Would love to hear anyone’s opinions.

My ds2 is at uni and has a part time job. Maybe not as much as your dd but he works most Saturdays. It's about managing your time really. It's a good lesson IMHO. Maths I think is not as contact heavy as some degrees. Would be hard to work if you did engineering or med I suspect.

Oxford and Cambs is a different story tho as the terms are short abd intense.

Which uni? Pt jobs not always easy to find in smaller places.

Every university careers adviser I've ever organised to come and talk to my students (Humanities) emphasise how important working while an undergraduate is for future employability. Any kind of work as a student is seen as preparation for working life, as it demonstrates time-keeping, reliability, initiative, and so on.

I think a part-time job is difficult in some universities and degree courses eg NatSci at Oxford or Cambridge, as the terms are short (a NatSci student in my family at Cambridge had a 6 day a week lecture/tutorial/lab schedule), but there are always vacations, internships, and placements.

My company has a lot of uni students working for it part time and the local Tesco and coop has plenty doing shifts

I worked while at uni 10 years ago (16-20 hours a week at a pub) and I plan to work when i return to university this month. Most people I know worked - the only ones who didn’t were wealthy or doing medicine/nursing/something else with lots of hours and placements.

Also nobody wants to hire a new grad with very little recent experience. They’ll struggle to get hired.

Working part time is fine and good. But not so many hours that it affects their course. And Maths is intense.

Working to fund the maintenance that your parents are supposed to pay is pretty awful though.

My DS worked over the summer and managed to save £5000. He's funding his food and living expenses himself with what he's saved. We're paying his accommodation which will come to £5000. I think it's been really good for him to work and save with purpose over the holiday. He's not got any plans to get a job in term time as he's studying engineering so will have long hours in uni but he might need to next year if his accommodation costs go up. It's good for them to work in the uni years so don't feel guilty. X

I think it depends on the course whether it is advised.

My DD's experience is that it's very difficult to find a part time job as there are more students wanting jobs than there are jobs, so you should bear this in mind. If your DD already has a job it's worth her looking into whether she could swap to a store in her university town.

Lots of students also carry on working in their home town at weekends, or in their uni town in holidays, so you might want to consider if she'd want to do either of those.

This.

Mine works around 8 weeks full-time over the holidays and gets about £8,000 from that with tips. In addition she has a term time job for the university but that isn't that many hours.

Both our children had jobs at university. So did my husband and I.
We worked during term and in the holidays. Enough to see us through.

Not all parents can afford to pay or very little. Always been like that.

That’s a great amount of money! Do you mind saying what this role is?

I’m aware of that. But having loads of kids you can’t afford, then expecting them to pay the price for that, is pretty shitty in my opinion.

Oh happy judgement.

My DS did Maths and worked full time in the holidays and throughout Uni. We did pay his rent but he was earning enough to not take out the maintenance loan for years 2 and 3.

Depending on where the uni is, the Tutor Trust take on uni students to work in primary and secondary schools helping with Maths. Must be similar companies in other parts of the country too.

It’s worth knowing that some intern positions are available in the shorter holidays and not just the summer. These are paid at graduate salary rates and may lead to a job offer too.

I would definitely encourage it for experience as well as financial reasons, but it can be hard finding work that fits in around uni without needing to work through Christmas/Easter breaks when many go home and can also be peak study periods. My older DC had a termtime only job on the campus which worked well. Having previous retail experience should help.

but all the university students we talked to said it wasn’t advised.

Which students?
Where?

All mine have worked as - from conversations with colleagues and friends - have virtually all the students I don't even know. Plus all my dcs' friends have worked to some extent.

I will say that has been to top up their income, for the most part and not replace the money it is expected their parents can give them.

If you genuinely aren't going to give them anything, then I think relying on working in term time is not a great idea. They need to have worked through the Summer between yrs 12 and 13, and then the 12 weeks or so of the time between A levels and starting Uni.
Or choose to take a year out and work and save for a year first.

Money aside, if they get to 21 and haven't had a job, they are putting themselves at a serious disadvantage in applying for jobs when they graduate.

Thanks everyone for your responses - I was just trying to see what other people do. There are some really great ideas there, and I love the idea of tutoring.

We are paying the rest of the maintenance grant (that only covers the accommodation costs for most of the universities we looked at) and so the money needed would be for food and spends only, she would need around £100 a week we estimated. A part time job could easily earn that for her, but I am just worried that she would suffer if she was working (that’s what all the universities are saying).

My daughter would love to study maths at Cambridge, but as we all know even the top students don’t get in sometimes, so we are looking at Bath, Imperial, LSE, Warwick and Bristol too.

Of course, if the unanimous response was that she shouldn’t work, I would be happy to take a second job in the weekend.

yeh blimey @SilkiePenguin what does she do to earn £1,000 pw? That's a lot more than I earn! <switches careers>

I agree with @redskydelight that it would be good if she could transfer her role (eg if she works pt at Asda - to the Asda in her uni town/city). DS has found it hard to find a job in Lboro as the student ratio is so high (small town). I imagine this is less of an issue in Manchester or Brum.

ETA: I see @Silverfoxlady you are topping up your DD's loan to the full amount – but you say it only covers accommodation. Just to let you know there are a good number of unis where accommodation is available priced from (say) £4k to £6k for halls, and maybe a bit more for private 2nd and 3rd year houses (bc a 12-month let). If all the places you are looking at have £10k accommodation only, and money is an issue then you might want to look elsewhere.

DS is at uni and he doesn't work in term time. He works in the holidays though - you can earn quite a lot as the holidays are long.

My son does Maths and has a part time job in a pub popular with students near the campus. He does two shifts a week, including throughout the holidays even though it's not as busy then as a lot of the students have gone home. This does help with food shop and social life and doesn't seem to have affected his studies.

Sorry @Silverfoxlady read your post properly now - Bath, Imperial, LSE, Warwick and Bristol these are some of the very expensive places for accommodation. Tho Cambs is actually not expensive.

If I were you I would look also at Leeds, Sheffield, Brum, Lboro, Leicester which offer cheaper options. I am a big advocate of considering the cost when looking at uni choices. Nothing wrong with that.

4 kids all been to uni one still there. All had jobs the DDs were doing courses that had full time table, in every day most days, one doing teaching one OT, both had to do weeks of placement and still had part time jobs, not just for the money, but also relevant for CV. DSs both had jobs but more hospitality for structure and money. I never had to give them a penny they all wanted to be financially independent and now all have very good jobs and great work ethic.Son in final year already been offered a grad post on completion if he wants it.

My DD is going into year 3 and works about 12 hours a week, sometimes more. Her uni says no more than 16 hours a week. Honestly she’s got enough time for going out, she can get a job!