by Sara Maddox

Created on: February 05, 2009   Last Updated: October 16, 2011

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! At 5:00 a.m. I awake to begin another Thursday. I am a college co-ed studying criminal justice full-time and managing a local bagel shop practically full-time as well. Tuesdays and Thursdays are the most dreaded days of the week. I have school, work, the volunteer work for one of my courses, and a meeting with the organization I have joined. At 5:30 a.m. I am at my employment beginning a five-and-a-half hour shift. While I rapidly make bagel sandwiches and pour hundreds of cups of coffee I manage to squeeze extra minutes of studying for a quiz on juvenile delinquency and exam on Minorities, Race and Crime happening later in my day. I quickly change in the bathroom at my job, while scanning more information about the two subjects, and rush to find parking on campus while scarfing down a bagel as I speed through town.

On campus, I have an exam on four chapters of Juvenile Delinquency; one of the toughest courses, but most influential in my volunteer work. Wishing I had studied more as I race back to my car, I rush to my volunteer job at the local Marine Institute. I work two hours every Tuesday and Thursday as a technology teacher for a handful of students. I had a course the past semester in which I learned the material; I now receive a grade based on how my own students do on their assignments. This is more of an opportunity to work in a criminal justice field while studying it as well. The students I teach are all in trouble with the law, most on probation, and all are younger than 19 years old. This course and work allow me to apply the terms I learn in the juvenile justice subject to every day life.

After I finish with the students, I head back to school for my last two courses, M.R.C. and Substantive Law. I study for the quiz as I run to class. Substantive Law is pretty much a pre-law course that is administered like a first year law school course. Difficult would be an understatement. At 9:00, just a few minutes after my last course ends I head across campus to a meeting. After all that I have done, I still have at least two to three hours of studying and papers to write before I can sleep.

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