Is it really worth having a job while at uni?

If your student loan barely covers your accommodation, like the majority of us, then there aren’t too many options other than getting a job; as even 23p ASDA basics noodles and £1 jagerbombs start to add up.

But, trying to split your time between waiting tables for £7 an hour and listening to the most expensive power points you will ever face is hard. As I’m currently writing this on the back of a receipt while folding napkins and repeating that the special is salmon for the 70th time this weekend.

Getting ready for a night out

You’ll have to get very used to getting ready for a night out in the toilets at work in under ten minutes; where you will probably be vomiting in 12 hours later and doing shots in the staff room because you missed pre drinks with your friends. Either that or getting ready for a night out ten hours early and hoping your setting spray will hold for that long.

I must admit I am impartial writing this after working 25 hours in two days as I no longer feel my feet and can’t remember what my flatmates look like.

So no is the answer, you don’t have time to work 30 hours, go to to uni for 10, do 20 hours of reading especially if you don’t want to sacrifice eat or sleep and still have time for 2 for 1 cocktails at Revs. But you just have to.

The hangovers 

It is however the perfect way to procrastinate while making money, although it’s hard to think that when its 10am on a Saturday and you’re hiding in the stock room so you’re not sick on a customer.

So say goodbye to nights out on a Friday or Saturdays, unless you want to suffer the next day. The hangovers are definitely the worst part; with uni you can tell yourself the slides will be online and happily sleep all day and eat Dominos with no guilt. But when everyone at work has seen your Friday night snapchat story and three instagrams about the #bestnightever there’s no getting away with having ‘the flu’ the next day or even worse when you go out with people from work then there’s no way you can lie. Just remember one drink after work is never one drink!

And you spend your life washing your uniform in your bedroom sink

Seeing all your flat mates go on spontaneous weekends home is slightly soul destroying when you would have to plan it months before. And there’s no Christmas spirit with any part time job you have; you’ll get sick of the same Christmas songs on loop every shift and staying in your empty uni house while everyone else goes home.

But, you would be lost without the free food and staff discount.