Trying to balance night shifts and a degree in my early twenties

Deciding to start the night program at twenty-one

I remember staring at my laptop screen around 2:00 AM, wondering if I was actually going to pull this off. Being twenty-one and trying to hold down a job with rotating shifts while also attending university is just… exhausting. It feels like I am constantly running on caffeine and missed sleep. Most people my age are out doing college things, and here I am, checking my company schedule to see if I can swap shifts again just to make it to a seminar. I chose this path because I thought it was the most efficient way to keep my income while getting a degree, but honestly, the reality is much clunkier than the brochures make it sound.

The reality of the cyber university and transfer process

When I first looked into a cyber university transfer, I thought it would be a simple digital setup. You log in, you listen, you pass. It is not that clean. The credit banking system is a maze of requirements that I’m still half-convinced I didn’t navigate perfectly. I had to pay roughly 300,000 to 400,000 won per course, and every semester feels like a calculation of how many credits I can actually handle before I burn out completely. I keep hearing about people taking courses in firefighting or hotel culinary arts, which seem so much more hands-on than the theory-heavy stuff I am stuck with. Sometimes I wonder if I should have picked something like drone piloting or a specialized certification program instead, just because it would have a clearer, more physical outcome.

Managing the fatigue of the night schedule

My company was decent enough to let me skip the night shift for a month when the workload at school hit its peak. That was a lifesaver, but it’s only a temporary fix. You realize quickly that ‘work-study balance’ is a bit of a marketing term. When you spend your day working, your brain is effectively fried by the time you sit down for a lecture at night. I found myself zoning out during important video modules, then frantically re-watching them the next morning before my shift. It’s not about being a model student; it’s just about survival.

Watching others and the feeling of uncertainty

I saw a news piece the other day about a nursing home where there was only one nurse for every eighty patients during the night shift. It made me think about the fragility of systems that rely on people doing double duty. I’m not saying my situation is that dire, but there’s a shared, low-level anxiety in knowing that if one part of my schedule slips—the job or the school—the whole thing might just collapse. I talk to people in local career workshops at places like Jae-neung University, and everyone acts like there’s a clear roadmap. Maybe there is, but I haven’t found it yet.

Why I keep showing up even when I want to quit

There are nights when I stare at the screen and think, ‘Why am I doing this?’ I could just work my shift, go home, and sleep like a normal person. Instead, I’m stressing over assignments that I hope are actually contributing to some kind of future. I see ads for drone training institutes and realize that maybe the world is moving toward these technical, specialized skills while I’m still grinding through a general degree. I’m not even sure if this is the right path anymore. I’m just doing it because I started it, and stopping feels like admitting I couldn’t hack the schedule. For now, I’ll just keep swapping my shifts and hoping the next semester doesn’t break me.