Graveyard shifts keep students burning the midnight oil
As full-time students at USU, some may agree it is difficult to get a full night’s sleep, after juggling a job and a stack of homework. However, some students’ jobs are the reason they don’t get their eight hours of recommended sleep.
A handful of students can be found roaming the Taggart Student Center and other buildings on campus after 5 p.m. with a bucket of cleaning supplies. Others work past 9 p.m. in computer labs. Some work from midnight until sunrise. What are these students sacrificing to bring in a paycheck twice a month?
David Lieberman, a junior majoring in business and night auditor at Sherwood Hills Resort in Sardine Canyon, said the night shift has not been so bad since he adapted.
“I worked night shifts four nights a week for a majority of the first semester, and it wasn’t fun,” Lieberman said. “This semester, I decided to tell my boss that I only wanted to work two to three nights per week, which is better.”
The sacrifices associated with working nights and attending classes the next day include commonly missing out on extracurricular activities, said Jace Cairns, a junior majoring in liberal arts and a night auditor at the Comfort Inn in Logan.
Because of Cairns’ graveyard schedule, he said he sleeps during the day when he can find time and, therefore, misses out on quite a few events he would otherwise enjoy attending.
However, working night shifts can have positive aspects as well.
Lieberman said, “I actually really enjoy working a graveyard shift at a hotel, because I can finish all of my homework while I work, and it isn’t very work-intensive.”
Cairns said because few customers need assistance during his shift, he also finds a lot of time to focus on his studies.
The main problem associated with working the night shift for some students is trouble staying awake during classes.
“Staying up all night and then going to class makes it difficult to stay awake during lectures,” Cairns said.
Lieberman said because of his job, he found himself skipping early classes more often than he used to.
“My grades didn’t really suffer too much because the classes I took weren’t too hard,” Lieberman said. “But if I had more early classes that required attendance, it would have been a struggle.”
Sydney Hanks, a senior majoring in special education, didn’t find balancing schoolwork and her graveyard shift at Logan Regional Hospital as easy to manage. Working in the mother and newborn unit, Hanks said she is constantly on the move, working from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. Most of her time is spent with newborns in the nursery while their mothers rest, she added.
“I was tired all the time, and I wasn’t social at all,” Hanks said. “I wasn’t doing very well in school because I just was like ‘Oh, I can miss this day and sleep in.'”
Hanks said she ended up speaking with her boss about her work schedule, explaining the effect it was having on her grades. She now works the 12-hour shift on weekends to manage her three classes.
Students preparing to graduate sometimes take night shifts for their first career-oriented jobs in order to get their feet in the door. Tazya Williams, a USU alumna who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism, said she works the 12-8 a.m. shift for “2News This Morning” as a producer. Though she said the graveyard shift isn’t ideal, she is happy to be employed doing what she enjoys.
“The benefits for me are my weekend starts at 8 a.m. on Fridays, and I don’t go back until Sunday, so it’s a great weekend. I get home around 9 (a.m.) and sleep until 3 or 4 (p.m.).”
Williams said her sleep schedule often confuses her body. She tries to sleep like “normal people” on the weekend, but then goes back to sleeping during the day when she works.
“Sometimes you just don’t sleep over the weekends,” Williams said. “On weekends, I just end up sleeping during the day — waking up and then going back to sleep. You can tell when your body has had it.”
Though Williams said she loves her job now, she knows she doesn’t want to permanently work night shift. It’s a way of earning her way up the career ladder, she said, and being recently graduated from college, she realizes she can’t choose the hours she wants.
It’s similar to the way a job works with a student’s schedule in college, she said.
“If you are still in college, you aren’t always going to find a job that works around your classes,” Williams said. “It comes down to how bad you want it.”
As a college student or recent graduate, sometimes there’s no option to be picky about an occupation, Williams said, and everyone needs to make sacrifices when it comes to landing and keeping a job.
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