Working before PA school starts

[TeacherPA]

Hi everyone,

 

I currently have a full time job (as I am sure many pre-PA students do). I am wondering how far in advance of PA school starting I should tell my job that I am leaving and when I should leave.

 

Does anyone know what they are doing with this situation? Do you intend to work right up until school begins or quit with a few weeks to go?

 

For any PAs or PA students- what would you recommend? Would a week, two weeks, a month be enough time to prepare for school? I know I will be moving before school starts, but it is within 3 hours of my current home. 

 

 

Any thoughts?

[Disciple3]

I'm struggling with this myself at the moment.  I'll probably begin taking a couple weeks off at a time to try and get some rest.  I feel completely exhausted after working more than full time, going through this admissions cycle and traveling for interviews as well as still taking a pre req class this fall.  My employer knows I'm attending school in May, but will be happy to keep me as long as they can I guess.  Depends how you feel they'll react when you tell them I suppose.  My goal is to try and cut back on working as much and visit family and the gf when I can and get myself back together before the real work commences!

[UGoLong]

There's probably no one right answer here. As a professional, giving notice at work is the right thing to do. Depending on your job, that might be two weeks or it might be three months, depending on how hard it is to fill your job and how likely it would be to be fired on the spot and frog-marched out of the building! I'm guessing about a month is good.

 

The other part of the equation is what you want to do with your precious last few days or weeks before school starts. In my case, I stopped working two months before school started. I spent 2-3 weeks doing chores around the house to ready the place before I moved away (leaving my wife, temporarily). Then we took a two week vacation, and then I prepared for and moved to my new apartment, getting there about a week before school started.

 

For me, this timing was perfect. For you, it's up to you. I suggest to figure out what you want to do (and can afford) and then alert your present job about a month before you want to be free of them.

 

Best of luck. It was a great ride!

[MT2PA]

Totally depends on your job.  If you are working in some sort of healthcare situation, the 'rules' I've always seen are 2 weeks (minimum!) for most lower level, "non professional" jobs (think phlebotomist, CNA, etc that are fairly easy to replace with quick training periods) and 4 weeks for more 'professional jobs (as a medical technologist I fell into this camp).  Unfortunately, work was incredibly slow and I knew if I gave notice they would let me go immediately, so I chose to only give 2 weeks bc I couldn't afford to go unpaid for much longer than that if it happened - they also had no idea I was even applying to school.  If your employer knows about your plans for school and you are on good terms, you could certainly give them a heads up now.  Most places will require a letter of resignation before HR can post your job so they may ask for an idea of when you plan to leave (May?  August?) and then ask you to narrow it down in the spring so they can start planning since often the hiring/training process can take months.

 

I quit about a month before classes started to give myself 1 week of vacation, 1 week to pack/move, and 2 weeks to enjoy my new town and get settled.  Some of my classmates took 4 weeks, some took 2, and some moved in just days before classes started.  It's totally up to you.   Making money for longer would have been nice, but I'm glad I had time to not be rushed with the whole process.  

[crystaltide]

My employer knew I was applying to and admitted to PA school, but I let them know a firm date that I was leaving 1-2 months in advance. My last day was 2 weeks before I started PA school (5 hours away from where I had lived).

[hrubenstein]

I left my job with about a months notice. I took a couple days off before school started and to get my loose ends tightened up. I was only able to move into my apartment the day before classes started which was a little inconvenient but in the end it all worked out fine. I guess everybody is different. Some people like the vacation. I tend to lay around and do absolutely nothing which doesn't really help my relaxation. That is why I chose such a short interval.

[Holly_Diana]

I think it depends. My job knew I was applying to PA school, so it was just a matter of what school I planned on attending due to differing start dates of the programs I was accepted to. I told my job when my last day would be about 5-6 months in advance (the hiring process for my position was going to take awhile, so I wanted to let them know ahead of time so they could potentially interview before I left and then get someone hired shortly after I left my position). I know some people in my program who only gave two weeks though.

 

I personally ended up working full time up until 3 weeks before my program started and then worked part-time (about 20 hours a week) until orientation. Other people I know took a few months off from working prior to starting the program. I think it is solely dependent on your financial situation as well as just the type of person you are. I actually still go back and work at my job during breaks because my job offered me a PRN position for when I wasn't in classes, so I think my situation was a little unique.

 

The best advice I can give is look at your finances and how long would you be able to not work before being dispersed your loans for living expenses. I definitely think more time is better to take just because you truly are really busy in PA school, so some down time or traveling is nice to do before starting. Hope this helps.