Sometimes, the worst part about summer break ending isn't because of having to go back to college. While most of my friends were busy working over the summer, I was lucky enough to enjoy summer break off my normal job tutoring at my college campus. Most people I know would ask me what it's like to transition from not having a summer job to having to work over the school year.
It's hard. I mean, there are both good and bad things about going from not working over the summer to working during the school year. For one thing, when you go the entire summer without working, it can be a huge chore to suddenly have to work again. You live on a schedule before the summer when you are working. But as soon as you stop working for the summer, you get off the schedule.
You get off the schedule for planning how many hours to work, figuring out when to set your alarm and other things. When your alarm first goes off in the morning, it's a huge struggle to get up after a whole summer of sleeping in. You find yourself constantly fighting the urge not to throw your alarm out your bedroom window. And coffee becomes the only beverage you drink.
What makes it even harder is that having a job while going to college forces you to figure out how to juggle your classes with working. You have to plan out time to do your homework and how many hours to work during the school year. It can definitely be overwhelming and stressful at first when you go back to work
Also, you find that you have less time to work on any hobbies that you worked on during the summer. For example, during the summer I would play piano, read and write whenever I had the time. In the summer I had plenty of time to work on my hobbies, but now I'm lucky when I get to read something that isn't a scholarly article!
On the plus side, after not having any money for the whole summer, you finally get paychecks that help you pay off any expenses you had over the summer! In addition, if you enjoy your job and workplace, you find that you've missed working over the summer.
I love tutoring students! I am majoring in middle childhood education, and tutoring is similar to teaching. I love helping students understand math, and I found that I really missed working over the summer!
Another good thing about working is that it's harder to get bored now that you find yourself always busy. In the summer, you start to run out of things to do, especially if you didn't have that many vacations to go on over the summer. However, when you are able to start working again, you find yourself so busy that you have a hard time not having something to do over the school year.
If you're a tutor, you also tend to forget most of the information you used for tutoring. If you're tutoring a specific class, for example, you have to go over all of the notes you had or information for that class so that you can tutor students successfully. It's even harder if you're a math tutor since math is one of the easiest things to forget over the summer since it requires a lot of practice. Which means that as soon as you start working, it's time to spend at least an hour reviewing all of the notes before starting your job!
Even though going back to work over the school year after a summer of relaxing can be stressful, it can also have its benefits. It's definitely a huge transition just as going back to college from summer break can be. However, once you start to get used to working again during the school year, you find yourself glad to be back at your job again.
