I haven’t had the luxury of a summer off since high school. I doubt I’ll ever have another one, come to think of it, which is a bit sad, but c’est la vie. It got me thinking though. Why don’t more people work full summers? Do they just not get how large their student loans are gonna be and what a huge amount they’re saddled with? By the time they come out and start accruing interest – well. I make over 2k a month full time – one summer would easily pay for a year’s tuition (unless I was a med student. Still, all the more reason to work). Of course I have a relatively well paying job, so let’s go with minimum wage. Should be about $1500 take home a month. That’s $4500 in three months, and if you have exams early on you can have up to a four month summer. Again, that’s a hefty amount of money, and not something to sniff at. It might not cover tuition for everyone, but would you rather owe $9000 or $4500? And if you don’t want to give up your ENTIRE holiday, then work half time, or for three quarters of the summer, you know, find an in between balance!
I understand money really isn’t as important to most people my age. That’s cool. They’ll learn. But even stepping up and working a day or two a week could be put towards those monster loans – you have months of free time and if you’re sticking around close to home, why on earth not make some extra money to save or get started attacking your loans with?
Engineering students also have to do a truckload of work exp to graduate – like 400 hours or so. My mum was asking me why my friends are bumming around, doing nothing and working at Countdown instead of doing time at an engineering firm? I didn’t have a suitable reply. Really. I still don’t.
