By Martin Sande (Community Leadership Consultant 2019-2020)

There are many benefits of students working while studying. These benefits include students gaining crucial soft skills, becoming responsible and independent, enhancing their networks, and helping them to earn and manage their incomes.

For instance, for my case, as a student employee at Highline College, I have learned to be independent and responsible while I are studying. Oftentimes, I balance between studies and work without having to sacrifice either. All the decisions I make are my own responsibility. I feel this is the reason why most students who work part time are usually organized as they can prioritize their tasks, and this makes them good at time management. Given the tight schedule at college, this has given me an opportunity to create a balance between work and class time, that helps me to keep track of my roles and responsibilities, thus helping accomplish my goals.

Working at CLS as a Community Leadership Consultant has helped me develop soft skills such as strong communication skills, emotional intelligence, problem solving, teamwork, dependability, and decision making, among other skills. Even though these soft skills cannot be practically taught in a class setting, they can be acquired through hands-on experience in an office, such as CLS.

I also get to network, with everyone within the college, which is crucial in my career progression. Working at Highline has given me the chance to interact with peers and professional staff, for future referees. There is no doubt that I have developed both professional and personal relationships at Highline College. This has helped me to expand my professional network circle. Additionally, working part time at the college has been a source of income for me. Besides earning an income, I have come to appreciate the value for work time and developed financial management skills such as budgeting and planning.

In conclusion, working while studying offers me valuable experience because it helps me become more responsible and independent. I also appreciate being part of a team, which also helps me with developing skills that are important for my career development.