This summer has so far proven to be a time for decisions and trying to figure out the next step in my life. Up until this point it has been a struggle between completing my final year of my current program at school, or just continuing to work, gaining experience.
The benefits of both are pretty even. On one hand, I believe that education is important, I love my classes and instructors, and I only have 8 more months before I need to enter “the real world” anyway. On the other, I’m at an age where I’m craving independence, and want to move out on my own, and live with my own rules, and I could do that, and live comfortably, if I continued to work.
The downside of not finishing the last 8 months, of course, is wondering what would happen should I choose to move away, and don’t have the piece of paper that many companies want to see before they even consider an interview.
Then, because I am difficult, I recently came up with another idea, which would be to transfer at the end of next school year, and do an additional 2 years at a university. My program has the option of putting its credits toward several degrees, the two I’m looking at are a Bachelor of Communications Studies, or a Bachelor of Professional Arts in Communications Studies. The reason for this, I suppose, basically comes down to the fact that while I love code and design, I also love a lot of other aspects of communication, and that I’d rather have too much than too little, and to be able to get the education I need before I’m off trying to be an adult.
The downside of this, of course, is an additional 2 years of living at home than planned, and an increase in bills (although my parents have said I could have loans at this point). The upside would be an entire degree.
So, yes, that’s what’s going through my mind at the moment (well, in addition to the redesign I’m working on 
), so PLEASE give me some input, so I can continue to explore all of my options!
You should move to New Zealand where it’s not difficult to live away from home and get your degree at the same time! That would solve one of your problems.
But it creates another problem of um, having the money to move here. Haha.
I think you should continue on. Is living at home really so terrible?
Hmm… a paid internship would be a great option – but they are rare as hell, in the media area they’re non-existent. You could take a gap year when you find something.
Or maybe find a job for a bit, settle down in a new place and then look into uni?
Or you can try going straight ahead and finding a flat with a few other students. I believe you wrote that your own would be a bit to expensive.
I’m looking into new options as well, but so far I’ve got nothing thus this means me continuing my 4 year course (3rd year, which judgind form our options will be horrible). Good luck!
Reply: I currently have a paid internship. But it ends when I start school, because I’m… at school during office hours.
Personally, I’d go for the completion of studies. OK, so you will still have to live another two years with your parents, but at least you will be able to finish your studies without stressing about “real life”. Well, sort of. I did stress about not finding work (I know, I know, unlikely… but :P ).
Sure, you’re probably thinking, that since I moved out, it’s easy for me to say for you to keep staying, yadda yadda. Now, I’m not sure how you deal with this kind of stuff, but once I started working full time, I didn’t have ANY kind of pull towards studying. And I had another exam to complete, before I could get my degree. And it was such a drag. Now I’m not sure about how uni relates to real life over there. Here, though programming degrees had plenty of practical parts, a lot of the stuff I learned in uni, I’m not using (so far). So it all seemed rather removed from uni life. Sure, I’m not saying it’s the same for you. Just mentioning my own experience.
I’ve been asking myself similar questions lately. I’m currently on a leave of absence from my Multimedia degree working full time in Multimedia/Flash development.
After a fair bit of soul searching (as well as meetings with my boss and uni people), I’ve decided that I’m going back to uni next year to finish the last year of my degree. Making the decision to leave my full time/very awesome job was one of the hardest choices I’ve made in a long time.
It needs to be a choice you make and it needs to be based on what’s going to work for you. I don’t know all your circumstances, but based on what you’ve said, at the very least, I’d suggest you finish the 8 mths of your current course and see how you feel about the degree closer to the end of it.. (that said, I don’t know about degree applications/timelines and that sort of stuff in Canadah!)
Good luck deciding what you’re going to do. It’s not an easy question to be wrestling with!
I’ve regretted moving out too early. I left home the summer I graduated high school and it has been difficult. One of the reasons I left ACAD was because I couldn’t handle juggling between school and financial responsibilities. It’s been a little easier now because I have a better job, but it’s still been difficult.
Now that I think about it, if I had held out and lived at home, I could have finished my degree and on my way to have have a real career by now. But instead I wasted 2 years because I decided to move out.
You’re still young, so you’re going to have time to persue a full degree later on. I would recommend holding out for 8 months and save up some money. After you’re out of school and have money saved up it would be better to get a mortgage started instead of renting. And if you really want to go back to school, at that point you could also get a student loan which would help.
As someone who studies and works full-time, are there other study options open to you? If you can continue to work on a flexible basis (e.g. four days instead of five, or five hours a day instead of eight), you may find that you HAVE time to study AND work. Whether it be night school, distance education courses, online education…surely there’s some college/university somewhere that can offer you the flexibility you need to do both simultaneously?
There are always options open to you! xx
I agree with Amanda. Working and supporting yourself, whilst studying, is possible. You could always see what the university can offer you i.e. cheaper accommodation, whilst maintaining a part-time job working four days a week i.e. Thurs, Fri, Sat, Sun.
I had to make a similar decision last year whether to walk away with a normal degree or continue for another year to get an honours degree. I stayed on and even though it was challenging it was definitely worth it when I finished 3 months ago. Now that I have it out the way, I can draw a line under the past four years and move on with the rest of my life.
In terms of picking a course I moved from originally doing Interactive Multimedia Creation to Digital Media as I thought it covered a larger subject area when looking for jobs etc.