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[foreigner123]

I´m writing my dissertation and TA-ing, but I´ve also taken a part-time job (20 hours per week) since my university has been talking about the possibility of TA layoffs.  I feel like this part-time job is hurting my academic work, though, because I´m not able to put as many hours into my dissertation and on top of the teaching, it ends up taking a lot of my writing time.  I´m not sure what to do at this point.  Should I quit the part-time job in order to produce a better dissertation and possibly published articles or should I keep the job at least for some peace of mind and security while I´m writing?  (I have been able to work for around 45 hours per week on the dissertation, but somehow I feel that this is insufficient--I´m a slow writer and thinker).  I would appreciate any advice... : (

[sinenomine]

Does your school permit TAs to have additional jobs?  Check your contract....

[foreigner123]

There´s nothing in the contract discouraging students from holding outside employment and everyone on my dissertation committee is aware that I am working two jobs.  They seem to have no problem with it.

[seniorscholar]

To you have an actual "contract"? The rules about outside employment are often in a graduate school document, which around here is on the grad school's webpage as a pdf you have to open separately -- but graduate students are not allowed to work outside jobs while funded as TAs for exactly the reason you mention (often means they'll need an extra year or two of funding, which the university would rather spend on someone else, or they graduate with no publications and can't get jobs). In some cases, TA funding has been cut because the grad school decides the person was not making adequate progress, or because the TA work was being done in a sloppy fashion, and the "reason" for cutting the funds is always the existence of the rule, which is public (if you can find it).

[midwestgrad]

In many states, such contract stipulations are illegal.

[foreigner123]

Stipulations aside, I´m making progress to my degree, turn in chapters on time, participate in conferences, etc.  Plus, the department chair (also a committee member) knows about this and supports it.  My question was just if it is worth continuing to work 100 hours a week (no exaggeration) or if I should risk unemployment in order to produce a stellar thesis (it might help to note that I´m in the humanities). 
Thanks for any and all suggestions.

[bewilderedta]

I guess I wonder about the necessity of having the part-time job now. You say there are rumors of lay-offs, but until you are actually laid off (unless you need the money now), I'd think it would be better to focus on your writing as much as possible. Cross the layoff bridge when and if you come to it.

[msparticularity]

Is there any flexibility at all in your part-time job? I worked a bunch of jobs through grad school, but always made sure that the ones outside of my TA positions were flexible enough that I could take time off for short periods when I really needed to churn out a bunch of work.

And I also want to say that if you are already putting in 45 hours per week of good, focused time on your dissertation, it is unlikely that just adding more hours will lead to increased productivity. There have been numerous studies over the years that tend to indicate that 5-6 hours per day is the most we get at peak performance working on any particular task for a sustained period (weeks)--after that all we're doing is putting in time. My own experience was that I could do 3-4 days of 12+ hours per day, but then I crashed and needed several days to recover.