I’ve had two different jobs since my sophomore year. More important, I realized having a job isn’t social suicide, partly because I feel I have a balance of friends from work and friends from school.

My roommate is one of my best friends. I met her at my first job, and we now live together.

Finding a balance between work, school and time for the miscellaneous, be that socializing or studying, is crucial.

This semester I have no nights off, but I have two mornings to sleep in. My job is flexible enough that it allows me to leave at an hour early enough to get my homework done and get a full eight hours of sleep. Scheduling of classes is vital to not committing social or academic suicide. If you schedule your classes in the middle of the day, that doesn’t allow for flexible job options.

To keep a job, students may find themselves scheduling classes in a way that allows them to work a certain number of shifts at a job that pay all the bills in an appropriate amount of time.

In my experience, restaurant and retail jobs offer the most flexibility in schedules for college students.

Restaurant managers, more often than not, worked at a restaurant during their college years. That means they understand when a student employee tells them about a project or mandatory event coming up and are willing to work around their schedules.

When I was looking for a job, I found out fairly quickly that potential employers were most interested in my class schedule. If my class schedule didn’t mesh well with what the restaurant was looking for, there was little point in continuing the interview.

The restaurant I work at now is a good fit because I work with people who are willing to work with me. My manager is understanding about my workload at school and is accommodating to my schedule. The people I work with understand about my school schedule also. Most of my co-workers have gone to college and are sympathetic when I’m overloaded with homework or there’s an event going on around campus.

You do lose some flexibility, but missing one party isn’t going to be the end of the world. You can just schedule one of your own the following weekend.

Jennifer Boone is a senior news-editorial journalism major from Irving.