Having a part-time job at uni is the best thing you’ll ever do

It’s pretty much guaranteed that loans aren’t enough. That’s no negative reflection on how much or how little you party, where you do your shop or how you travel, whether that be scumming it up on the Magicbus or living the life of luxury in an uber.

In most cases, you’re going to need to fend for yourself and get a part time job, here's why it's the best thing that you can do while at uni.

Money

The first, and most blatantly obvious one. Most student's maintenance loan is't enough, even if you’re able to get the odd hand out from your loving but naive parents (for thinking the money is going on loo roll and pasta). Earning regularly is a financial care package that you can look forward too weekly or monthly. It's way more frequent than your loan and, more importantly it's yours and yours alone to keep. Unless you’re like me and spend most of it at your place of work (a bar) so they do sort of get it back.

Perks

Whether it’s a bar, a shop, a restaurant or wherever else you may work, you're usually offered some sort of discount, freebie or both. Perks or discounts are the part of your job where you get something back from your employer, and supplement your wage.

Satisfaction

It's undeniable that a hard day's work does leave you feeling oodly satisfied. The change of scenery, the (sometimes) interesting conversations you have with customers, and the hours you’re soon to be paid for provide an enjoyable feeling as you make your way home to find your housemate is still exactly where you left them, watching Rick and Morty and taking a Buzzfeed quiz to find out what kind of cheese they are. Smile at how you didn’t go out tonight and spend your precious money, you arranged for some precious money to go into your account instead (for once).

A distraction

You have imminent deadlines, a presentation and a 9am lecture. But someone needs their shift covering tonight and you’re poor, so escape all that anxiety, put your mind towards your job, and enjoy thinking about how you’ll spend that extra money. Having said that, it’s also good to talk about your uni problems with your work colleagues too, partly because they might be able to help, but more importantly because it'll halve your worries.

Your work family

Your form a different kind of friendship with your work mates than your uni mates. You end up bonding during busy shifts and post-work drinks, you end up realising you want to look after these guys and you hope they’ll return the favour. And when all’s said and done you can get super drunk and have a good long bitching session about everything that went wrong during your shift, both of you knowing it’s more of the same next week.