Throughout the school term it's hard for many students to balance school life and a job. The hours spent doing projects can't be calculated exactly beforehand, which makes a job pretty hard to handle at the same time. Lots of students will not work so they can avoid the unnecessary stress it entails.

However it is sometimes a necessity to have extra income. Rent, food, toiletries and other supplies add up after a while and the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) may not meet up to the spend that has to be used on necessities. So many students have to take on a job along the hours spent in class and completing assignments. There will be stress and even times when schedules will be changed at last minute's notice, but it is better than having no income at all… right?

Here is where work study comes in.

Work study is a great opportunity for students to work a job while avoiding the stress of interfering schedules to your student life.

In the first place, what is work study?

The Fanshawe Financial Aid Office offers a couple of bursaries that students can apply too within each semester. Work study is one of those many bursaries for those in financial need.

There are three times in the year when work study can be applied for. During the months of August to September the applications open for the fall and winter term. In December and January the process for just working during the winter term become available. The third time is work opportunities for the summer time or post-diploma student, which applications open up in March to the beginning of May. Those who apply must be a full-time or post-diploma student. For the summer they must be returning as full-time, who has applied for OSAP and is maintaining a satisfactory academic progress in order to qualify for the bursary.

The Financial Aid Office calculates if a student's needs outweighs the income they are going to make and if it does then their request is approved. In this particular case, the student does not receive a set amount of money but rather a set amount of hours that they are allowed to work each week. During the school year the work study is only part-time allowing work up to eight to ten hours a week, while during the summer students can apply for full-time jobs that can be worked for 35 hours a week.

Once approved, one can access the Careers/Co-Op/CCR link under the Resources tab on Fanshawe Online (FOL) to see what job postings are available for work study. However, the website does not include contact information for the employer to apply for the job. For that, students must go to the Career Services office in D1063 with a copy of the email they received confirming their work study status and ask to see a book with the current work study listings and contact information of the employer.

So, why apply for work study?

There are a couple of benefits to working through work study rather than an ordinary job outside the college.

The first is that the amount you make will most definitely stay under the amount OSAP has listed on the documents everyone has to fill out each year. This amount is the prescribed limit of income someone can make before OSAP starts deducting money from its funding. Some jobs will have a student working for more than 15 hours a week, which is great for the immediate cash flow, but will reduce the amount of help from OSAP later on. Work study prevents this situation by keeping the hours low enough to not go over the limit.

Another reason why work study works favourably is that it is jobs on campus. Meaning, for those who want to work and have classes having to leave the class midway to get to a work place will not be an issue anymore. The most one will have to walk is just a few minutes away from their class to get to work.

There are also a variety of jobs that anyone can pretty much work at. Rarely are the postings anything specific to work experience. As well, some jobs are actually program specific, where certain students in certain programs will have precedence in being hired more than others. It is a good work experience opportunity for those in those programs where there is a career experience opportunities.

The largest reason work study benefits students is because of the flexibility in scheduling work shifts. In work study the employers are open to creating a weekly schedule that matches your school life. The employer and student work together to make the schedule fit to the student's schedule as well as they can. There is no need to worry about suddenly being booked too close to class time. The additional benefit to this is, is that employers through the work study program are more lenient in exam time, knowing how busy students are with studying, and are willing to let a student reduce or change hours if needed.

For more details about work study and to apply, visit fanshawec.ca