Studies and work

This is kind of a nice concept here. You work and study at the same. You can fund your education or your living expenses by working at various places on campus. At graduate level, I think one is too old enough to not work. 

But still funding education here is not as straight forward as it seems. Compared to India it is disproportionate. I remember when my parents were organizing funds for my education here. We just went crazy. We even mortgaged our small possession. But still it was not good enough. 

Even though you have the flexibility to work here, sometimes it gets really difficult. I say this because I am a TA for two semesters now. I can hardly remember any weekends when I could sleep without any inhibitions. The whole week is so busy here that weekends are usually spent in getting your courses right. There are hardly any holidays except the spring break and the thanksgiving break in fall. So its like you are working non-stop for 10 months in an year. Don't know what's the scene like in summers. But I don't except to be any less cruel.

I have not been on job at all, so pardon me. But I guess job is still easier in the sense that you know that you don't have to put in extra effort. You know you have to get up in morning, go do work and then come back and sleep. Studying while working has no fixed time limits. You have to wait for the semester to end. 

But as they say you loose something to gain something.