Do you guys work while studying at university?

[Adequace]

Do you guys work part time while studying and what are you studying?

How many hours and how many days?

Should you work if you're trying to get in to post-grad dentistry or medicine?

[Russ]

I did a shift a week as an undergrad student (Biomedicine), which probably came out to about 10 hours a week. I stopped in the more time intensive postgrad but kept doing casual tutoring or word of mouth jobs. You don't really have a lot of time commitments at the uni itself in your first degree, so you can fairly easily make time for a part time job. It might be a bit harder in your first semester, since adjusting is a struggle, but I had a job from day 1 of my degree and didn't think it was more difficult for me than for anyone else.

I would advise working regardless of your postgrad aspirations.

[ninwa]

I worked approx 20 hours per week throughout most of my degree (and full time during swotvac/exam periods). I believe that no matter what your post-graduation aspirations are, having work experience on your resume will always be beneficial. The money also helps obviously.

It depends on your degree though - I studied arts/law, which has relatively low contact hours and very low compulsory attendance requirements. My brother who studies commerce/engineering has 20+ contact hours per week and has classes every day, so there's no way he would be able to work as much as I did. I think you should work as much as you can without compromising your GPA.

[MelonBar]

I'd try not to work more than 10-15 hours/week because you need high as grades for med and dentistry. Tbh I struggled working 10-15 to maintain my grades, not to mention the social etc parts of uni life - this is coming from someone with average learning skills, and i would take some advice here with a grain of salt because atarnotes is disproportionately full of academic gods and geniuses.

If you are short on money then you have to do what you have to do - and i would recommend doing some work if you can for the sake of life experience - but if you are serious about getting into those post grad courses you need to dedicate a lot of time to study. Ive seen people work/party way too much and fail a lot of subjects - their prospects of getting into M eng and post grad health courses are pretty crap now - but this can easily be avoided if you are reasonable with what time you have.

[simpak]

I used to work around 10-15 hours a week in first year and second year of my Science degree (2-3 nights a week) and then in third year I worked around 12-16 (variable) hours a week in a lab as a part of UROP. But I would never work during exam periods - I would always request and be granted time off for the entire swotvac and exam period.  For UROP that's a given because you're not supposed to work during that time, for my previous job my boss was just understanding of the fact that I needed to study hard to get high grades and enter the postgrad courses I was considering which included medicine. Also I never saw my friends outside of uni \o/ and I ditched almost all family events (I even left my brother's wedding reception early to study for an exam the next day lol) and I never slept more than like 6 hours a night so you have to be willing to sacrifice some things to make it work.

I think you shouldn't work in the first semester of first year maybe - see how university goes for you, how frequently you need to study to achieve the results you would want and then decide on whether you could manage it. I think it's a personal thing - some people can study very little and get a H1, others need to study more thoroughly and consistently.

[spaciiey]

I only work for about 5 or so hours a week during semester as a private tutor (more when you account travel time to students), plus extra occasional work as an adjudicator through DAV. My situation is a bit unusual though because I live wayyy out in the north east but go to Monash, meaning a lot of my day is spent in the car driving, which personally I found draining on my time and my brain.

As an undergrad I spent a lot of time in the car and this year am getting ready to do so again. Having said that, work is definitely useful to have on your resume. I found that I couldn't have much of a 'life' during semester but that was okay with me. The advantage of tutoring is that it's a generally higher pay rate per hour compared to other jobs, meaning I can work less hours for more $$, and if you work for yourself you can arrange your students however you want (within reason). Some of my friends worked part time in more 'real' jobs but at the expense of attending lectures and stuff. It worked for them but personally it wouldn't work for me. It depends on how you learn, how well you study, your personal living situation, etc.

If you need to keep your grades up though, I echo what everyone else has said and keep your hours low if possible.

[Fyrefly]

I worked multiple jobs and did similar hours to Nina, except full-time during holidays, not swotvac or exams. Nina said "work to the point where it doesn't affect your GPA" (on mobile, sorry for paraphrasing). Personally, the amount I worked did affect my GPA, and I know Nina would say it affected hers too, so probably better to work 10-15 hours a week as a ballpark figure.

Everything worked out in my favour and I got a great job and everything, but if your goal is post-grad then your GPA is more highly prized than work experience or extra-curriculars. You've gotta play the game according to your goals.

[ninwa]

I worked multiple jobs and did similar hours to Nina, except full-time during holidays, not swotvac or exams. Nina said "work to the point where it doesn't affect your GPA" (on mobile, sorry for paraphrasing). Personally, the amount I worked did affect my GPA, and I know Nina would say it affected hers too, so probably better to work 10-15 hours a week as a ballpark figure.

Everything worked out in my favour and I got a great job and everything, but if your goal is post-grad then your GPA is more highly prized than work experience or extra-curriculars. You've gotta play the game according to your goals.

Wish I could upvote this more than once.

My career aspirations are in an area where a well-rounded resume was preferable to a high GPA and nothing else, so I spent a lot of time working / volunteering / developing AN Media / entering music competitions / etc., and as a result my GPA suffered. Like Fyrefly, it worked out well in the end, but someone with postgraduate aspirations should not follow my example.