By Sian Powell
Busy is an understatement for people who are studying while holding down fulltime jobs. Leisure time - and family time - shrinks as assignments and exams take precedence. How can you manage the heavy workload? Three students share their experiences.
‘They were definitely the hardest years of my life’
Simon Wood studied a postgraduate law degree at RMIT and is now studying a graduate diploma, all while working fulltime. Credit: RMIT
Simon Wood held down a full-time job as a paralegal during most of his full-time post-graduate law degree.
“They were definitely the hardest years of my life,” he says. “It was quite a juggle, but I managed to make it through by having that set-up, the three semesters that RMIT offered.”
With the increasing timetable flexibility and online tuition now offered by universities, determined postgraduate students can find ways to manage a full-time work schedule and take on a substantial study load.
Now 32, Wood graduated earlier this year, and he has already begun the graduate diploma in legal practice required before he can be admitted as a solicitor. The diploma course can take three months full-time, but he has decided on part-time, which will take six months. He plans to continue working.
Wood also has a media and communications degree from RMIT. Before he turned to law, he earned a living playing in bands.
Then COVID-19 hit.
“I came to studying law fairly late in the piece compared to a lot of my peers,” he says. “I was a musician all through my 20s, which wasn’t a particularly viable way to make a living during a pandemic, so that spurred me on to revisit my interest in law.”
He began the law degree in 2020, during the pandemic, and in 2022 he left Melbourne and went to the Northern Territory for a three-week internship with an Aboriginal legal service based in Darwin.
Three weeks led to six months, which became a year, and Wood finally stayed in the job.
He had to drop back to working four days a week during one semester to cope with the study load, but for most of the latter part of his degree, he worked full-time.
“It’s a good job,” he says. “I’m still able to learn a lot and get some practical experience in this role while I’m still studying.”
‘I still hold a number of positions’
Sara Chica-Latorre (right) divides her time between working and studying full-time at Canberra University.Credit: Tyler Cherry
Sara Chica-Latorre divides her time between working and studying full-time at Canberra University’s Research Institute for Sport and Exercise. A doctoral candidate, she also teaches a course in anatomy to undergraduates at the university.
Originally from Colombia, Chica-Latorre has lived in Australia for 13 years and has a bachelor of science degree from ANU and a master’s degree in nutrition and dietetics from Canberra University.
“I’ve had quite a number of positions and I still hold a number of them,” she says of her working schedule. “When I started my PhD, I was a Canberra Institute of Technology trainer and assessor, or teacher.
“I was teaching nutrition and some subjects in fitness, specifically for students doing their certificate 3 and 4 in fitness. I’m still doing that, but I tend to do it in the second semester.”
She also maintains her private practice as a dietician, now catering for the general population and focusing on weight loss. At the same time, she is concentrating on her doctoral thesis, on menstrual cycle symptoms of female athletes.
Balancing her shifting mosaic of work and study commitments can be “very difficult” Chica-Latorre says, but she expects to finish her doctorate by the end of next year, at the latest, and she then hopes to find a post-doc position in Europe.
‘I’m able to catch up a little bit more on weekends’
Katie Petchell, head of preparatory school at Guildford Grammar in Perth.
Katie Petchell, 44, has a full-time and extremely busy job as the head of Guildford Grammar’s prep school in Perth, yet she manages to pursue a master of business psychology degree in her spare time.
“I feel like I’ve been studying for the best part of 12 years,” she says, which she adds is largely because of the difficulty of balancing a demanding executive position with study.
She has just started at Guildford Grammar, but she was also studying in her previous position in a smaller school, taking on a master of education at the University of Western Australia.
She exited that course late last year with a graduate diploma in health and wellbeing in education. She says she wasn’t daunted by the course study load, but she didn’t relish knuckling down to produce the required thesis, and she preferred to switch to a course that “gave her joy”.
She can always go back and finish the master of education course later.
The flexibility of her current business psychology course makes managing her study load possible. The course is offered by the University of Newcastle, thousands of kilometres away and in a different time zone.
Petchell says she studies in her own time, often setting aside Sunday afternoons to absorb the online lectures and workshop material.
“Obviously it’s a juggle,” she says. “The fortunate thing is because I’m in education, there’s a real intensity during the term. But while I don’t get the 12-week holidays that teachers get, the pace is a bit different during the school holiday period.
“I’m able to catch up a little bit more on weekends because I’m not as exhausted by the working week.”
The ability to work at her own pace has made it all possible.
“The wonderful thing, post-COVID,” she says, “is how unis have really catered for people who work, or who can’t be there.”
More postgraduate stories from Campus
What now? The latest data shows enrolments in postgraduate degrees are changing. It’s just not what we are studying (hello health degrees) but also how we choose to study while we work.
Payment plan: Postgraduate study doesn’t just benefit your career, it can also boost the business you work for. Here’s how to make your boss pay or contribute to your further study.
The MBA effect: Thinking an MBA will work magic on your career? According to the experts, it depends on why you are doing it and how you use your new powers.
Hands up: Should you opt for a master’s degree or a PHD? And how much will it all cost? Ask (and answer) these important questions before you take the plunge.
Serial student: In our new series The Third Degree, we talk to Kylie Hasse an Australian Army officer, nurse, mum and master’s student. She has been studying since she left school and she’s not done yet.