Junior Melissa Craig thought getting a part-time job off campus would be helpful, and so she applied for a job as a cashier at Meijer.
"I took the job because they told me they would work around my schedule and my class load," Craig said.
Craig said her employer gave her a lot of hours at first, and that was something she liked when her class load was light, but she ended up quitting her job because the hours she was scheduled began to interfere with her classes. Craig worked at Meijer from Sept. 2000 to July 2001.
According to Craig, her hours got cut toward the end of the fall 2000 semester, a time when she was able and wanted to work more hours.
"I tried to get on full-time in the summer, but they wouldn't let me," she said.
However, Craig got all of the hours she needed and then some when spring semester came along. Work started to interfere with her morning classes because sometimes she didn't get off work until midnight, and she had 8 a.m. classes during that semester.
Craig had told her employer she couldn't work more than 20 hours a week with the class load she had then, and she also said she couldn't work any later than 10 p.m.
When nothing was done about her schedule conflicts, Craig said she repeatedly went to her boss about the problems she was having.
"I'd gone in almost every week with schedule problems," she said.
According to Craig, she was told nothing about her schedule could be done because she wasn't high on the list of seniority and all the other spots had been taken by employees who had been working there longer.
So she quit.
Though students might run into these kinds of problems working off campus, they are less likely to run into problems working on campus, according to Joseph P. Goodwin, the assistant director for the Career Center.
"During the school year, students enrolled at least half-time can work up to 20 hours a week," he said. "Technically, they can work up to 40 hours in a two-week pay period."
Problems with off campus jobs can often be avoided by scheduling only 20 hours of work per week. On-campus jobs alleviate some of the late hour scheduling conflicts that many students feel.
Goodwin said this is a policy Ball State's Board of Trustees establishes and is a pretty common standard for university employment throughout the country.
According to Goodwin, this policy was put into effect because of national studies done on student employment, and research shows students who work more than 20 hours per week tend to have lower grades than those who work fewer hours.
This still poses a problem for students who have part-time jobs off campus and work more than 20 hours.
Goodwin said there's really nothing the Career Center can do in those situations because the office mainly deals with on-campus jobs.
However, employers try to work with students and their schedules in order for students to work and go to school.
Rob Humphrey, the co-manager at Hobby Lobby in Muncie, said schedule conflicts generally aren't a problem for his store.
"Students are usually part-time (employees) and work mostly afternoons and evenings," Humphrey said. "Usually, it works out."
Humphrey said schedules for employees at Hobby Lobby get made out about two weeks in advance, and students usually turn in requests to have days off early enough for management to give them those days off.
Darrin Wilson from Meijer's general merchandise department said Meijer tries to work with college students as well as possible in regards to their class schedules.
"We're just very open," he said. "They usually give us their class schedule and we work around that."
Read More
Three Air Jam teams take home the win
October 12, 2012Nineteen teams shimmied, shook and flipped for a sold out John R. Emens Auditorium on Thursday night during the 25th annual Air Jam.
Bill Clinton Speaks at North Central High School
October 12, 2012Former President's Speech Could Have Effect on State Senate Race
