I am a Community Advisor and an Engineering student here at NIU. I am heading over to my third year of Engineering and my second year as a CA. The most important skills that I have learned are setting boundaries and time management. In order to balance my studies I have to set boundaries with my residents and within my role as a CA. I have to communicate with my superiors and my co-workers when I am overwhelmed or need help. I also have to be able to set firm boundaries with my peers in order to properly maintain my role as a CA.
I have struggled with boundary setting in the past. As a chronic people pleaser, I have often struggled saying no to people. If someone needed help, I would help, regardless of what my schedule was like. Last year I learned that I needed to make some changes if I was going to be successful as both a CA and an Engineering student. In order to learn how to set boundaries, the most important thing I had to do was learn how to prioritize myself. As I began to accept myself for who I am, and give myself the help I needed, it became easier to set boundaries.
Being a Community Advisor in addition to being an engineering student has also taught me that I need to do more than just plan out my time. When I was a freshman, the most important thing I learned was the importance of scheduling my time. I would set times to study, times to do homework, times to eat, and times to do chores. I struggled so much in learning how to get everything done in time, but by the end of my first year, I thought I had it figured out.
So, the next year I decided to become a CA. I wanted to help others learn how to be comfortable at NIU (and the free housing didn’t hurt either). I used the scheduling skills that I had learned, and was able to keep up with working and class. However, I quickly learned that simply scheduling my time so that I could complete everything in the nick of time was not enough. Soon into starting this job, I learned that I needed to make some changes if I was going to be successful as both a CA and an Engineering student. I had to learn to do more. I had to learn to complete my work ahead of time, and to study as I learn new material. This is because with a job like being a CA, I have to be always prepared to spend an afternoon, or a night, helping residents with problems that occur.
I live where I work, and I have to be available as much as I can to my residents. If they have a serious problem, or intense disagreements within the residence halls, I am the first person they turn to. Because of this, there have been multiple times where I have had to do impromptu work during times when I had planned on doing homework or studying for a test. Once time is gone, you can never get it back.
If I can give any lasting advice on how to deal with working while in college, I would say that you need to learn to put yourself first sometimes, and you need to do your work earlier than you think you have to.
-Jade Winkoski
Thank you for reading this post. Take a look at our other blog post just click below!
Comments