London is a city full of job opportunities, especially for students. In my case, I’ve been working for LSE for a year and a half now. Apart from being an LSE student blogger, I served as a tour guide at High Holborn Residence last year during the Undergraduate Open Day. Yet, I have one crucial piece of advice for those of you who are searching for a part-time job here: learn how to stay on top of your studies whilst managing your part-time job. Hopefully, this post will help you to simultaneously ace your studies and work.

Know yourself

I know, this may sound like Socrates. In the context of seeking a part-time job, though, this is about being aware of your physical (and probably mental) capacity, as well as your academic workload. Some jobs require more physical work than others or probably expect you to be on-site during your working hours. Others, like this student blogger position, are more flexible (with responsibility) – all you need to do is to follow a brief and submit a post by a given deadline.

This ultimately boils down to setting your priorities. If you feel like you can commit to a specific time of the day for work regularly, it’s okay to get an on-site job. If you want to spend most of your time studying, maybe you should consider getting a remote, flexible job. As an international student myself, I cannot work more than 20 hours per week and LSE allows 15 hours of part-time work per week in term-time. Fifteen hours of work, however, will probably require you to sacrifice your studies to some extent. No matter what you study at LSE, they’re rigorous for the amount of independent study you need to prepare for seminars. In other words, you should be considerate of how long you can fully focus every day. If you’re already spending a lot of time-solving problem sets or catching up with readings, you should probably think of getting a flexible job. Remember, you’re here to study. Work experience is important, but big firms will also look at your transcript as well as your CV at the end of the day.

Plan ahead

Mark your calendars. LSE courses have formative and summative assessments that you have to stay on top of. Simultaneously, part-time jobs have certain time commitments and, if necessary, deadlines. If you don’t plan, you’ll likely get lost amid high workloads on both sides.

Even part-time jobs have recommended time commitments. In the case of LSE student bloggers, we are asked to spend approximately two hours per post. I’m a slow writer, and it takes me about two hours and a half to write a draft and edit it before submission. Again, if you have some academic assignments that you’re working on, you should also consider how long it takes for you to complete the task from your part-time job.

Consider your interests

Another top tip that I’d like to share is about your interests. Before taking on a part-time job, consider why you’re applying for that position. Do you like the task that you can continuously work on no matter what (at least during your contract)?

The reason why I applied for this student blogger position was because I loved writing. To be honest, I was a little bit fed up with writing academic pieces for examination purposes – I wanted to share my life and record it regularly. For a change, I got to write something that was not related to my degree.

You won’t know whether you’re a good fit for a given part-time job until you actually do it. So, give it a go, but try to do something that interests you so much that you can treat it as an enjoyable experience. Hopefully, that will help you to nail both your academic work and part-time job in the long term.