Emmanuel Ndizeye, an academic researcher at the School of Finance and Banking (SFB) says that work derails a full-time student from concentrating fully on his or her studies.“If you are a young man or lady with able parents, relatives or guardians, the best thing for you to do is to concentrate on your studies. Money making comes after,” he says.Ndizeye adds that students should rather look for jobs that are not so demanding in their respective fields of study.“If you have no choice, then it is definitely better for a student to get a job in a profession which he or she is studying at school. If one is studying catering, then get a job in a restaurant. If it is in telecom engineering, then getting a job in a telecom firm would do.”Most students today find themselves in some sort financial fix when it comes to their upkeep.“They find that they have to buy lecture room notes for different modules, pay for their monthly rent and also have their daily meals not forgetting transport costs in case one does not reside close to school,” says Dan Ntagungira, a former lecturer with Mount Kenya University in Kigali.Ntagungira observes that being students without a source of money for upkeep can really be harsh on a student to the extent of affecting their performance in class. “So students become psychologically unsettled when they do not have money and their lecturers wouldn’t know a thing about it! If you can balance work and studies, the better for you. After all you gain some important life experiences which help you get better jobs in future.”
