For most students, college can be very stressful and time consuming.
From nursing and biology, to engineering, history and more, each major has a certain amount of hours that needs to be dedicated in order to get a degree in the department.
Now, imagine going to school as a full time student, having a part time job and being a full time parent all at the same time.
Doing it all is not impossible; it just takes a strong willed person who knows how to manage their time and activities in a smart way.
Being a full time student consists of having at least 12 credit hours in classes; usually having a part time job consists of working 20 - 30 hours a week; being a full time parent means being there for your child whenever they need you.
For Yvonne Brown, Junior music business major, she has had two years of figuring out exactly where her comfort zone is with juggling school, work and being there for her child.
"When my major was nursing, I barely had time to work, for my baby or to myself," Brown said, "But, when I thought about what made me happy as far as my career goes, I found out that it was not that hard."
Brown has always had a strong love for music; in fact, her daughter has an ear for music as well. However, starting out college, her parents wanted her to go into the medical field, so that is what she did.
She was not happy about this major, and as demanding as nursing is, she never had the energy she wanted to spend time with her baby girl.
But, this past semester she realized that music is her life, and when she changed her major to music business, her classes were no longer like a forced job, and her hours became more flexible to have time to be with her baby after classes and still take on a part time job after her baby went to sleep at night.
For Arriya Cowan, junior psychology major, motherhood is fairly new - her baby is now seven days old.
Cowan is currently not working and doesn't plan to any time soon, but the father is.
"To make sure nothing goes wrong, I am just taking all online classes until she gets a little older," Cowan said, "Even though this is all new to me, it just feels right to be with her every day."
At first, Cowan was a little nervous about how everything would work out as far as school, but after the birth of her baby girl, everything fell into place.
"I think every parent comes to a point where they realize that education and money is always important, but that first look at your new baby and that first smile helps everything make sense - that the baby comes first whether that means putting school off a semester or quitting a job for a little while," Brown said.
Along with finding the time to do everything you need to with a baby in your life, you also have to find the right places to do everything at.
Janeica Larry, sophomore engineering major and Dillon Stroy, junior engineering major, just welcomed a new baby into the world just a month ago.
"Although we both like the U of M, with the campus being so big it is harder to concentrate on passing and having time to work afterwards," Stroy said, "So, I only take classes at the U of M on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the rest of my classes that I take are online."
Because some of his classes were already difficult, now that the new baby is here, Stroy feels that a new scenery for the fall is necessary in order to be totally focused on the new baby as well as pass his classes and have time to go to work - Larry has taken the semester off and will continue next semester somewhere else as well, at a smaller campus.
Being a mother or a father as well as a college student and an employee is not impossible, it just takes time and figuring out exactly where you fit in best.
Each of the different parents found that although it was not 100 percent easy to do it all, it was easy to figure out what was best for them for their babies - because in the end their children was the number one most important factor in figuring out how to manage their outside lives to fit that of their babies.
