Anyone qualified for SFU Work-Study?
 

I applied for SFU's workstudy and bursary since my family is on welfare and my parents don't work. Our total family income is around $12,000 only. I am living at home with my parents and I don't have a job. I was really confident that I would be qualified for Work-study.

Well, guess what? I received a email today saying that my "financial need is not high enough"!!!?? Like really? Are there actually other student's family who have an annual income of LESS than $12,000???? Really?

So I just want to know if anyone actually qualified for Work-study at SFU for the fall term? And if so, do you mind me asking what is your family's annual income? Cause like seriously, I thought $12,000 a year is like superbly poor!!! And it's a family of three also.

Thanks

ETA: I do however have a ~$1000 educational savings fund that I will get per year. My parents put money into that fund every month just so I could get $1000 a year for university. That's no way enough to cover 2-3 semester/ year.

I better be qualified for the Bursary though. That will be announced later on.

Really family of three on welfare? Why arn't you working? I work two jobs while in school at 32 hours a week.
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edit: Do your parents grow weed?

LOL, how does ur family live with 12k....

I think the reason why you aren't qualified for workstudy is because you are on probation.

well, the government pays all the rent.

this is still hard to believe. What are you leaving out?

It sounds like your parents have been on welfare for a while. The only way I can believe this if your native (racism not intended)

well, I actually only live with one of my parents, my parents are divorced. The third person in my family is a younger sibling. We've been on welfare ever since we were born pretty much. I think it's because my mom is considered disabled so she is allowed to never work and just receive welfare and child support money from the government as long as we want. I think child support ends when I'm 19 though. but my mom will still be receiving welfare for the family

Regarding the educational savings fund did your parents cash it out? the lump sum? You can also apply for a government grant that you get twice a year, through your educational savings plan company. I get my grant through USC, once in jan? and in sept.

yes, i already get the grants with my education fund. but all together it's only about $1800 ish for the whole year. not per semester. So that will not cover all my tuitions especially if i take all 3 semester.

why arn't you taking out a loan?

Take out a student loan. The gov't will give you up to $2000 in grants yearly, and it makes you more eligible for bursaries (or at least it does at UBC)

don't you have to pay back the loan tho and isn't there interest?

Dude there are literally tens of thousands of students in BC who are pretty much cut off from their parents that attend post-secondary education every year.

What do you think gets them by?

The gov't won't charge you interest until you graduate. You can also set up a payment plan to pay it off within 20 years or something.

i dont think you have a choice. What are you taking in school?

You should really consider doing co-op. I also get no help from my parents but I managed to save up 20k after my 8-month co-op term, which pretty much paid off my degree.

I did a work study when I was at SFU.

You won't get much in the way of valuable work experience out of many of them. BUT if you plan on being in your department for a long time you will be able to make a lot of contacts and MOST of the work studies are very flexible about hours (I did mine almost exclusively in the empty time I had between classes.)

I was in the Psych department and did work study for about four terms all for the same prof. The first term I did a research data base program, the second term I formatted papers for publication (mind numbingly dull BUT it did raise my average on papers from an A- to an A+) and the last two I worked in the animal care facility (which was a learning experience all onto itself).

The best part about the whole experience was I was able to meet ALL the TAs in the bio side of the psych department which helped me greatly in my fourth year.

The work studies do not pay well though (I think I got about 1400 a semester... which was for about 120 hours of work) but it was a fantastic help. And the contacts were the really big pay off for me.
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tl;dr working for a prof has its own reward. But if you want $$$ and can afford to take a semester or two off, co-op will net you more cash in the end.

when should i apply for co-op?

What are you majoring in? And you still have not answered why YOU are not working a part time job or something at McDonalds.

I was able to get work-study + many bursary and grants through SFU. My work study was awesome as I was being a research assistant for the head of the marketing department. I would prepare slides, do research and help her edit her textbook.

Was a good job and made some good contacts.

Bursaries were also good, grants were nice. I remembered on my exchange I was able to get like $2400 in bursaries. I also qualified for loan reduction twice :D

I haven't chosen a major yet since this will be my first year. I'm in arts though but plan to transfer to business in 2nd year. I will be looking for a part time job. As of now, I am working a summer job.

can I do co-op in my 1st year? if not, when should i apply?

^ I hope this helps
Home | Simon Fraser University: Co-Operative Education

You should really be looking for an alternative if you cannot get into business. I am not saying you won't make it, it's just I see lots of first year students who always say what you said but end up not qualifying to get into the business program.

Also, by your lack of research and your lack of knowledge to enquire on simple things that are quite useful to your university career, it shows that maybe you aren't really fit for business.

Why not actually go to the sfu website SFU.ca and search around or call an advisor for information. All the info is there. As a university student, you should know that researching things is an everyday activity for a student's life.

im still stuck at the welfare the whole life part.

^Permanently disabled, two kids, single parent; hard to believe but it does make some sense.

The reason you didn't qualify is that you probably don't pay any rent.