Balancing Work + School

[nonsequitur]

E.g., the floating ice cube problem. If you look at it and start building free body diagrams, mapping forces and vectors, keeping track of densities and volumes, it becomes a hideously difficult problem. But if you look at it and think, "Ice is just water. Wait a minute! That means when the ice melts, it will occupy the same amount of water as it's already displacing. Therefore the level doesn't change." THEN you're thinking like a physicist. Without the intuition to discover shortcuts and to quickly determine what kind of results would be complete nonsense, you'll spend all your time grinding numbers without context and getting lost.

I'm totally a physicist then, I was like "errr Archimedes in the bath tub?"

With relation to the OP, and having scanned the thread for background, I'd like to ask a few questions:

Is your current enjoyment for your job worth it to you to give up on your dream?

Are you studying with the aim of achieving a paper qualification and getting a job in your area of interest, or to obtain knowledge to single-mindedly work towards fulfilling your dream?

Do you need the job to support yourself financially? Or have you got enough saved away for the duration of your degree?

The reason why I'm asking these questions is because while I understand the drive to want to do everything, there's a reason why a dream is a dream. In reality, there will likely be a point at which you'll need to decide between for e.g.
a) doing that extra reading that would help to better prepare you for your dream job
b) the responsibilities/cash from your current job
c) being satisfied that you're just gonna get the grades and skate through school just for the paper qualification
d) sleep
e) your health

You're wiped out, which means that d) and e) are probably already being compromised (not sustainable across the length of a degree). If you need the money from your job to survive, you might have to sacrifice a) and go with c). If you have enough saved and are willing to put everything towards becoming the best in your future career, then b) is what you sacrifice. The point is that there's no way of doing it all, and you'll need to make a decision at some point about what you're willing to give up on and what you're not willing to give up.

We all have limited mental and physical energy, and no tips on prioritising, list-making and organisation can increase either, or the number of hours in a day (of course, an E5 with strong J would say this). Changing career track is a leap of faith for this very reason - you'll need to sacrifice/choose without the guarantee that your dream will come through.

 

[Kas]

I have some friends who were studying while studying at university, but only one person had a full time job and it seemed exhausting . Myself I haven’t worked then, but currently I’m preparing to the big exam and work same time and I must say it’s very tiring, right now it’s pretty much work-study-sleep-work-study-sleep loop. But studying in the field you are interested in is... great and fulfilling.

What I’m saying is that I think it’s physically (hah literally physically) doable. Question is whether it’s worth the effort?

 

[Thalassa]

Hi Rex, sorry I didn't reply earlier. But ...my experience is full time school, part time work, and extracurricular activities. Then working full time and school part time. I've never done both full time. That's extremely demanding, unless you're very familiar with what you're studying and can breeze through it. Otherwise your school will suffer, or ...well I can only speak for mystelf, I'd probably have a nervous breakdown.

But you're an ENTJ! Maybe your personality is better suited. Good luck!