After completing my first year at Ferris, my mother made it clear that she did not intend to lighten the financial load that came with being a university student.
Thankfully, I was fully covered by my financial aid at the time but I would still need to find a way to support myself. The first semester of my second year, an application was sent out for the position of desk student assistant. This was not my first job but I guess my interviewing skills were rusty, so I ended up completely bombing the phone interview and not landing the job.
Fast forward to the middle of the semester. I still hadn’t managed to get a job but luckily, the same position opened up and was offered to me. I worked this position for a full academic year, so from the mid-September semester to May move-out, the job was simple enough. The desk is supposed to be available at all hours of the day, so I started out as a substitute, filling in for others who would call in or just filling in awkward gaps between others’ schedules.
But with every job, I ran into problems. A severe lack of volunteers for the longest shift: the overnight shift. This was typically from midnight to four or five in the morning, so it’s no wonder people weren’t exactly lining up for the position.
Wanting to be helpful, I took every overnight shift every scheduling period for a couple of months. With this schedule, I would be attending classes throughout the day and then working through the night with catnaps in between. I was consistently working over the maximum allowed hours (25 per week) to the point where my manager had to threaten to terminate my employment. I was doing all of this and barely taking home $300 biweekly.
It felt unfair to push myself to the limit that I was allowed and see little reward at the end of a pay-period. But what choice did I, and many other students like me, have? I simply had to learn how to make the money stretch.
After moving out of the dorms, I lost the DSA position. FAFSA wasn’t enough to cover my tuition. I felt like I had basically applied to everywhere, on and off campus. I eventually landed a position at the Quad Cafe, as well as here, at the Ferris State Torch, another position I was painfully under-qualified for.
I was now starting a brand-new semester with two jobs, both paying minimum wage. I had to force both these positions into the 25-hour limit, which with the way photography assignments are scheduled, was not too difficult. Once again, I was working the absolute max and still bringing home a wimpy $300-400 check, which almost immediately went back to Ferris to pay for my classes.
After a full year of late nights, late payments and empty promises of paying back family, I was able to pull through that difficult financial situation and get myself in a comfortable position once I qualified for an increase in my FASFA loans.
Now, being in a higher-paying position and having learned how to stretch a dollar, I better understand the importance of financial management.