The acceptance letter came in the summer and the first term starts this month. A part time degree, two evenings of lectures a week, assignments every few weeks and exams in the spring. Three or four years of it, while you keep a full time engineering job. Everybody says how impressive it is. Nobody says how to survive it.
The biggest risk is not that the material is too hard. It is that the plan quietly assumes you have more hours than you do.
Start by telling your manager, even if your company is not paying. Nobody needs your timetable, but they should know that Tuesday and Thursday evenings are fixed, and that the weeks before exams will be tight. A manager who knows can plan around it. A manager who does not will book the release for exam week.
Ask about support. Many employers offer study leave, a contribution to fees or flexible hours for exactly this. Check the conditions carefully, because some of them ask for the money back if you leave within a year or two.
Connect the course to your work wherever you can. A database module makes more sense when you can compare it with the system you run every day. An assignment about software process is easier and more interesting if you write about something real. Ask before you use any company detail, though, and keep confidential data out of anything you submit.
Protect your sleep before anything else. People on part time degrees tend to borrow hours from the night, and it works for about six weeks. Then both the job and the course get worse at once. A realistic weekly plan, with one evening that belongs to neither, will carry you further than enthusiasm.
Plan the hard weeks in advance. Put assignment deadlines and exams in your work calendar on day one. Book leave around them now, while it is easy, rather than in a panic later.
Expect at least one term where you want to stop. Most people who finish have a moment like that. Decide now who you will talk to when it comes, so the decision is made calmly rather than at midnight.
– Asael Shinder
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