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I'm attending grad school out of state, paying upwards of $17K/semester. Over the summer, I was offered an internship (40 hrs/week). A couple of fellow students were also interested in this internship, but I was selected after my code interview. When grad school starts in the Fall, my manager has agreed to reduce me to 12 hours/week so I can keep the internship while focusing on grad school.

I also applied for some TA positions and landed an amazing TA Job (20 hours/week), that cuts my fees by half. This is a very basic "service desk" job that needs me to attend to email/phone and some other logistics stuff. So, I signed up for this job too.

I've the following questions:

  • What factors should I consider when deciding whether to keep both of these jobs or quitting one of them?
  • In particular, should I give up my internship for ethical reasons? Perhaps one of my classmates could capitalize on this opportunity more than I will be able to, given my other time commitments. But I really don't want to give up the internship since I see a future with this company and we have an amazing team.
  • Should I let my boss at the internship know about the TA position? I'm really not sure that they would approve of me spending time TAing when (from their perspective) I could be spending the hours at the internship. But the TAship is less work for more money, so I really don't want to trade TA hours for internship hours.
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  • The first question is off-topic for this site, but the second seems to be suitable, so editing out the first might help.
    – GoodDeeds
    Aug 17 at 17:01
  • Potentially an interesting question; I agree with GoodDeeds and suggested an edit that removes the first question (we don't take poll-questions like "Has anyone ever done this?"). There are already several reopen votes, and I will also vote to reopen. Feel free to make further edits if I botched anything.
    – cag51 ♦
    Aug 17 at 22:45
  • Your TAship pays more per hour than your internship?
    – Azor Ahai -him-
    Aug 17 at 23:14
  • Also, what field? The importance of internships varies wildly.
    – Azor Ahai -him-
    Aug 17 at 23:14
  • Thank you for the responses. This is in Architecture.
    – dab
    Aug 18 at 3:18
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It's somewhat unusual to have a part time internship like you describe, at least in the US. Typically, people who want internships only do it full time, during the summer. But if you think you have enough time, there is nothing stopping you.

As for your TA job, the actual amount of hours you will need to spend on it is probably nowhere near 20 hours a week. You should ask the course instructor what a realistic estimate for the workload is. It can vary a lot, both on the course and its instructor as well as for how familiar you are with the material/class.

There is no need to tell your internship boss about your TA unless you think it will interfere with your internship.

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  • So, this is a basic “lab technician” job. I need to wait at the desk, attend phone calls and respond to emails, along with helping other students with the lab, when they need it. Thank you for your comment!
    – dab
    Aug 18 at 3:20
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This sounds like it adds up to more time than you should be doing work and school together unless the internship is research for your degree, too. Lots of people manage all those together.

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