I've got a dilemma.
Background: I'm 5 classes into a 9-class master's program. I took spring and summer this year off to work full time, because it's an expensive program. When I attend school full time, student loans cover my tuition and leave me with enough money to cover rent for the semester, but little more. Most of you know this already.
The solution seemed to be getting tuition reimbursement through my company, and to finish one class at a time over the next year-ish. But the department has final approval, and since it isn't specifically department-related, even though it's company-related, funding for my class wasn't approved on that front.
So, I have to make a decision: continue with school full-time and hope I can make it through the semester on the tiny amount of money I have, plus whatever I can pull in through an as yet non-existent part-time job, or, give up on the program altogether.
So, I talked to my boss about it. What are my options? Could I go part time within the same job?
She came back to me today saying that this fall will be the "big push" and that they really need me. If I go to half time, that leaves them with two unexperienced girls (one who just started today and one a couple weeks ago) to cover what I could do. They just don't have enough people.
So, the management isn't really thrilled with the idea of me going to less time at work when they really need me. They value my work, and think I have great potential as an editor. They're trying to come up with solutions that could work for me and for them, so they can keep me and I can afford one class. They've offered to write the school to ask them to consider giving me financial aid for the one class, but the problem is, as most of you former and current students in the U.S. would probably know, if you're not going 1/2 time, you're not eligible for federal aid--and my school doesn't have any private programs for aid for grad students in my program.
Okay. So, they want me to stay. They even suggested that maybe I could wait to go back to school till January, because the big push should be done by Feb.
Should be--but the nature of these things is that even though my job wasn't supposed to last through *last* February, here I am working for the same department because things come up, and there's always something to do. But I trust my boss--if we made an agreement that I could go to half time in January, she'd honor it, and the new girls would be more seasoned by then.
And--Well, the truth is, I could use the money, too. Working full time pays the bills.
I had been considering just applying for a job with the children's department of Simon & Schuster (thanks for all the help, guys). But even though it looks perfect for me (associate editor in a children's department) as I've pondered and prayed I've decided that I need to be in Boston for now, and that I'd like to finish my program if at all possible.
So--what would you do, in my shoes? Give up the job and try for some random part-time work? Postpone another semester (totalling a full year out of school)--and miss a really good publishing class, which may or may not be offered again before I graduate? ... Or give up on the program altogether and try for a New York job like the S&S one?
