Working and going to college

[dragokatzov]

I have a very interesting two years coming up. I am going to be working part time and going to school full time. Thankfully I get two months, July and August where I can play all the Halo I want to.

This is a computer programming course at community college I am taking. Its not a university degree, but it might as well be that, plus a masters degree. I know people who have taken it, and have all gotten through alright.

Perhaps my only saving grace here is I will be hopped up on Dexedrine or whatever drug my Dr gives me. Keeping my job will let me keep my benifits so I can pay for it. ($400 a month is a lot for a student)

Any one else work as much as I am going to and go to school? If so, when do you work?

[BlueSmurf]

I personally find ADHD to affect computer science much less than other fields. It's less about studying and more about intuition. It will actually be easy if it's the right thing for you.

CS is one of those things where if you get it, it's as difficult as any other field, but if you don't, the learning curve will seem impossibly difficult. The indirect consequences of that mean that there's actually less content to memorize (but more concepts to understand intuitively), which actually makes it slightly easier on those with ADHD.

How many units are you taking and how many hours are you working? As long as they equate to a ~60hr week, it should be manageable.

[CheekyMonkey]

I've always had either 2 jobs, or college + part time job. I've always been burned out.

I think if you try it out, and see that you can't do both then be honest with yourself and re-evaluate your choices.

I just tried to push through it all and ended up wanting to die. Not a good place to be.

[Assumption]

Hi, I'm currently working 3 part time jobs and - in theory - working on a PhD thesis. It's umm, not really working so well at the moment. I suspect that I may have to quit one of them, if I don't get fired, because I haven't been putting in the hours I should (even though he's pretty flexible, 1.5 hours per week isn't enough). I didn't actually sign up for 3 jobs intentionally - I thought one job would end before the other one started, but it just hasn't worked out that way!

So, umm, advice? Don't take on too much!

[drdistracto]

Originally Posted by BlueSmurf

I personally find ADHD to affect computer science much less than other fields. It's less about studying and more about intuition. It will actually be easy if it's the right thing for you.

CS is one of those things where if you get it, it's as difficult as any other field, but if you don't, the learning curve will seem impossibly difficult. The indirect consequences of that mean that there's actually less content to memorize (but more concepts to understand intuitively), which actually makes it slightly easier on those with ADHD.

I disagree. I am one of those people who "gets it". I got a degree, but the theory classes were difficult because of how much I wasn't able to focus. I did my degree without the benefits of medication or a low distraction environment or extra time. I wonder how much medication would have helped. The other day I wrote a PERL program to process some data. I was not on any medication at the time. I couldn't quite get it to work. I was running it through the debugger but I was making slow progress. Next morning, I got up, took meds, and had the thing working in half an hour because of my increased focus. My logic was right; it was stupid mistakes in coding that screwed it up. A mundane thing like stepping through a program in the debugger goes a whole lot better on medication for me.

[keliza]

I worked my entire way through college, all 4 years. I took full-time classes, worked 20-30 hours a week at my paid job, and for the last 2 years I ran the young adult ministries at my church, which was another 10-15 hours a week. I also sat on the board for a student organization, another 10 hours a week on average, and during the semesters I had internships that would be another 9-12 hours a week, depending on the semester. So being conservative and aiming at the lower numbers, I was working (work, church, club, internship) at least 50 hours a week between all of those things, plus full-time classes.

I am the kind of person who really thrives on being busy, though, so it worked for me. I understand that the kind of schedule I kept might not work for most people with ADHD... in fact, it probably doesn't work for most people in general. But having constant activities and tasks to do helped keep me in a good place mentally, it gave me healthy goal-directed stress instead of free-floating "what am I doing with my life" stress, if that makes sense. When I had so much going on at once, it really forced me to be structured and organized, because I didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of keeping up with my life otherwise!

I guess what I'm saying is, you can definitely do this, but you have to figure out a way to balance it all that works best for you. You know yourself and your own limitations better than we do, and you know what ways help you organize yourself to be the most productive. Utilize everything at your disposal, all of your accommodations and any other assistance you have, and go for it!

[T-Rex65]

I worked my way through college and grad school. During grad school, in particular, I had a part time assistantship *and* two part time jobs. Now that I can look back on it with some knowledge of how ADHD can affect us, I see that I piled on more jobs than I could easily handle, probably because I felt understimulated.

[Assumption]

Originally Posted by drdistracto

I disagree. I am one of those people who "gets it". I got a degree, but the theory classes were difficult because of how much I wasn't able to focus. I did my degree without the benefits of medication or a low distraction environment or extra time. I wonder how much medication would have helped. The other day I wrote a PERL program to process some data. I was not on any medication at the time. I couldn't quite get it to work. I was running it through the debugger but I was making slow progress. Next morning, I got up, took meds, and had the thing working in half an hour because of my increased focus. My logic was right; it was stupid mistakes in coding that screwed it up. A mundane thing like stepping through a program in the debugger goes a whole lot better on medication for me.

Not that I'm doubting at all (I experienced a similar thing in computer science: I was really good at it but if you're not listening or putting in the work, eventually your natural talent will count for very little - I dropped out in 2nd year) BUT it could be that having that sleep helped you "reset" your strategies for trying to solve the problem. Even neurotypical people suffer from "attentional set effects" and similar when trying to solve a problem - they come up with one strategy and just keep trying that over and over. Having a break (such as a sleep) allows you to "incubate" - all that really means is you forget all the bad problem-solving angles you'd been using the day before, and come at it with a fresh perspective - so there's less chance of you perseverating. It really works :P

Cognitive flexibility is apparently one of the areas ADDers can suffer, so I am wondering whether incubation effects may be especially beneficial for them (us? If I have it?)

That said, the ritalin may certainly have helped too. :P

[Assumption]

Originally Posted by keliza

I am the kind of person who really thrives on being busy, though, so it worked for me. I understand that the kind of schedule I kept might not work for most people with ADHD... in fact, it probably doesn't work for most people in general. But having constant activities and tasks to do helped keep me in a good place mentally, it gave me healthy goal-directed stress instead of free-floating "what am I doing with my life" stress, if that makes sense. When I had so much going on at once, it really forced me to be structured and organized, because I didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of keeping up with my life otherwise!

This resonates with me. The more I have on my plate, the better I tend to do. I do pretty well at study when I quit all my distracting hobbies and take so much on that I have to spend ALL my time on it. The problem is that eventually I think "man, I'm doing pretty well. I'm sure I could play a little World of Warcraft on the side and still get my work done." Never seems to work out, for some reason - pretty soon I'm spending ALL my time on distracting hobbies (WoW is just one very nasty example of this) and getting NO work done. I wish I could achieve a work/life balance...