The students who somehow do it, how do you juggle high school, a job and build season? I’m wanting to start looking for a job soon because I just turned sixteen, and I’m not sure whether or not I should wait until after build season or not. Any advice,
from mentors (or students with jobs)?
2 Likes
Now is not the time to be filling your schedule. Focus on school & 1 major extracurricular at most (robotics and a job both count as major extracurriculars). Push to do more and you’ll be worse off at everything.
Remember Karthik’s Golden Rules for building robots - those also apply in life.
22 Likes
I tell my students and peer adult mentors balance is the key.
Or, “Dig deep” “Suck it up” (in a nice way), and “Builds character” when things get tough.
You forgot raising kids too. 
8 Likes
that makes a lot of sense
1 Like
Poorly /s
2 Likes
FTFY
4 Likes
It’s really easy if you don’t sleep. I’ve been going on 3.5 years since I have slept and I have 3 major ecs a job and school! Totally worth it 
4 Likes
Just like everything in life, it’s about balance. Figure out which is most important. (And not just what you want to do) Don’t forget you will need time to study and do homework too. You can put everything into one, or spread your time out, but you only have a specific amount of time. (I’ve never heard of anyone getting more than the allotted 24hrs each day) Also have a backup plan incase you get behind on something or get sick. And don’t do everything yourself, have someone you can count on to help out if you bite off too much.
I find that if I’m home before 9pm I’m useless for the rest of the day. 
The key word in “work life balance” is “balance”.
You cannot do it all. You need sleep. To keep your grades up. To not neglect your health. That guy Mazlow knows some stuff. Your robotics desires may exceed your ability to indulge them. Take care of yourself.
The candle that burns twice as bright burns twice as fast.
14 Likes
I would avoid taking a job during build season, but if your team switches to once a week or fewer meeting during the off-season, that seems entirely reasonable for most highschool students.
There’s an old social theory that people tend to do best when they frequent three main places. For many that’s Home, Work, and some kind of social place like a club, pub, etc. Students are often Home, School, and Sports/Band or Robotics here. Add another “main” place and it starts to become unmanageable, especially if there’s travel involved. Cut one out and things can get boring.
If you don’t need the money, remember that employers are disposable. Don’t royally piss someone off without a good reason, but if a manager makes you work an unreasonable schedule that cuts into school/studies, they have a problem, not you.
10 Likes
But listen, if you replace the candle with a raging inferno, it’ll last a long time!
I worked at the local elementary schools extended day program… it was great would go right there after school until robotics at 6
3 Likes
or it will die quickly, but not without destroying everything around it first
1 Like
Regardless of what you choose to do you will need to be honest to both your team and employer. Let your employer know immediately of the dates when you cannot be at work – kickoff, competition, etc. Let your team know when you cannot be there. Don’t wait until the last minute to inform your employer/team of commitments.
As an added note – if you are part of drive-team, you should probably postpone the job hunt until the end of your team’s competition season. Nothing is worse for a drive team than having partial participation from its members.
9 Likes
i’m a mechanical and cad student on a small team
1 Like
Work experiences provide value and context that school cannot, and I recommend students go for it, but as others have suggested… probably not starting out during robotics season. Go for it in the summer though, or sooner if really driven… just keep an eye on balance, as others have said. I’ve seen more than one student find themselves overcommitted unintentionally and struggling.
Learning how to properly balance time and prioritize activities is a critical skill needed for becoming an adult, and this is something that will certainly not go away when school (and robotics) ends.
Determine your top priorities, calculate their appropriate time allocations and commitments (including setting hard limits and establishing flexibility around the lower priority items), and budget your time accordingly.
I do tend to assign a certain monetary “value” to my time (in that I budget my time the same way I budget my money) and use that to help determine which non-mandatory activities I should prioritize (as some adults progress in their career, the balance of time and money shifts — first you have plenty of time and no money to spend to make use of it, and later in career you make a lot of money but have no time to enjoy it). So finding the perfect balance is pretty critical.
Anyway in your case, I would treat School and HW as obligatory activities, so determine your required time allocation for it. On a similar level, time with family/friends needs to be allocated.
Next, balance work and robotics by picking a reasonable work schedule (10 hours/week? If flexible, during non robotics meeting hours) and whatever is left can be attributed to robotics. There are tons of time budgeting apps out there that could help with this, though I personally use a spreadsheet
1 Like
As a CAD student, your time expectation is probably higher at the beginning of build season.
Regardless, I wish you good luck in your decision.
1 Like
Set expectations – if you can only be at robotics X times a week, make sure everybody knows that. Don’t take on a leadership role if you can’t be there when it’s important.
Manage your time. You’ll probably need to cut down on your work hours. You might want to take an easy class next semester.
1 Like
You can’t give everything 100%. You only have so many hours in the day, so much energy.
Can one balance robotics, school, and a job? Absolutely. But also consider your other responsibilities: sleep, family obligations, other activities, etc. Let’s say between school, family, and sleep, you’re using 70% of your time/energy. With the remaining 30%, you need to decide if this should be all robotics, split 15/15 between robots and work, or some other balance.