AUCIANS JUGGLE ACADEMICS AND PART-TIME PROFESSIONS

By: Salma el Saeed

While many students choose to only undertake the responsibility of a job or an internship during vacations, some AUC students decide to begin building their careers during their academic year.

Sara Sokkar, a marketing junior, is currently a writer and a caretaker. She said that she decided to work while still an undergraduate because of the improved opportunities this will give her on the long run.

In addition to meeting people and building a repertoire of useful contacts, Sokkar said that she has been learning a lot about herself while working off-campus. She explained that this gives her a better chance of choosing the correct jobs once she graduates from university, instead of “going in blind.”

“It makes you feel like an actual person, to have responsibilities and to be depended on,” Sokkar said, adding, “It’s great for self-esteem.”

As the unemployment rates in Egypt are on the rise, many university graduates find themselves without work after graduating. According to 2012 statistics from the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), 32 percent of Egypt’s unemployed are individuals with some university background. Trading Economics, a publication that provides historical date for more than 300,000 economic indicators, reports that the country’s current unemployment rate is 13 percent.

Sokkar said that it benefits university students to graduate with a good amount of work experience, as this gives them a competitive edge in the work force.

“Going to university is such a regular thing now that there’s nothing special about it in our circle, but having a job at the same time makes you a contributing individual of society,” Sokkar said.

Other students find it rather difficult to maintain a healthy balance between the demands of university classes and those of a part-time job outside university.

Jude Benhalim, a film junior who started her own jewelry business, says that her work responsibilities sometimes interfere with her ability to give her studies as much attention as she should.

“It gets stressful a lot of the time and sometimes I’m forced to put either work or university on the back burner until I can restore a balance between the two,” said Benhalim.

Furthermore, Benhalim dislikes the idea in Egyptian culture that young adults who search for paying jobs only do so because their families are incapable of adequately providing for them.

“Sometimes, it’s not about adding to the family income, it’s just about learning to be responsible,” Benhalim said.

Ahmed El Moslemany, an accounting senior, is part of the AUC work-study program and is a part-time worker at a multinational company. He explained that while it is challenging to balance academics with work, it improves time management, planning skills and provides students with various benefits.

“At work, they’re flexible and understand that my studies are my top priorities but in the meantime, I do my part to keep up,” said Moslemany, adding that he set his schedule in a way that allows him to make time for his off-campus work and work-study commitments.

Moslemany said that working whilst studying helped him because he got the chance to apply the concepts he learnt in class in the “real world.” He added that undergraduate work also helps because it gives students the chance to experiment, “as opposed to people who waste time by experimenting after graduation.”

Despite the difficulties that students face in building a career from early on, a wide number of AUCians seek work opportunities while they are still in university in order to improve their chances for employment once they graduate.