I’ve been balancing school and work since high school

According to investopedia.com, a leading business encyclopedia, opportunity cost is “the cost of an alternative that must be forgone in order to pursue a certain action.”

In college terms, this means if you go out to a party on the weekend, you lose time to study. Sometimes these choices are simple like when choosing between coffee and tea — gotta have my caffeine — but could turn a bit more difficult when trying to figure out how much time to allocate for certain things when working three jobs in a semester and trying to be a normal college student. The choices. The choices.

So clearly we have established I am completely insane and have more on my plate than at Thanksgiving dinner, but I can honestly say I’ve learned a lot.

Dominos

Maddie (left) and me (right) at Dominos

So back home in Chicago, IL — okay, you got me, Hinsdale, IL, but it is only 20 minutes from the city — I have my job at Dominos Pizza with my best friend Maddie I’ve been working consistently for about a year and a half. Now that I am in college, I can only work there on breaks. It is both the best and the worst thing for a person. It’s really bad because I’m working with my best friend. Consequentially, nothing gets done.

It’s the best because this job feels like a family and that is why I couldn’t leave it. Even though it takes up all my precious break time, it makes me feel good inside and the $9.25 per hour pay isn’t so bad too. So this is my breaks.

Pizza X

So naturally, when I came to IU I had to work at a pizza place — gotta get that pizza-line bling. So I started working weekends there. This place too, like Dominos, felt like family and so it was easy to work long shifts. The one drawback; the required closing Friday shift each weekend.

This meant that every Friday, I would work from 6 PM to 4 AM. Yes, you read that right — 4 AM.

Around 10 PM, I would be feeling at a caffeine low. By midnight, I was sluggishly making pie. And by around 2 AM, things would get a bit psychedelic and I would feel like the pizzas were talking to me. When 4 AM finally rolled around, I was practically rolling myself out the door, with a nice large pepperoni and cheddar for breakfast or maybe lunch. Halfway through the semester I changed my schedule to avoid these crazy shifts. These are my weekends.

Wright Food Court

Caesar Salas face perfected by yours truly

So lastly we have Wright food court which took up my Tuesdays and Thursdays and every other weekend. This is your normal cafeteria job I never really wanted to go to. This was a job that I felt I was required to have, since it was part of the work-study program that the government offers on the FAFSA.

This did not feel like family, I was not really making any pizzas, but only serving other students, which was humiliating,  might I add when one or every single person in my classes decides to come while I work and say, “OMG you work here! Can I have a caesar salad?”

It’s safe to say that at the end of the semester, I did not feel like it was worth it to stay there. . . or tell them that I was leaving.

School (sometimes)

So in the fall I had many classes like W-131, Spanish 250, Band and — LOL — A-100. But, the one that most stuck out was Calc 211. This class was, is and will forever be the death of me.

I would go to study sessions four times a week from 6 to 8 PM. I worked my butt off the entire semester studying in every free time I had. Let me tell you I got very crafty by December.

That said, let’s just say I’m still salty at my professor for not rounding my grade. Derivatives and U substitution made a permanent home in my head so I was spouting calc knowledge when I should have been telling customers about our specials or playing correct notes with the Marching Hundred at the football games. Last semester was truly packed, but I don’t think I would have it any other way because thats my purpose in life — to be stay productive, do well and to somehow pay my out-of-state tuition — ugh.