Katie McConnachie, Travis Alden, Kally Smith and Alison Gough manage their busy schedules as students who have to commute to one town for work and another town for school.

The four students work at the Dairy Queen in Sandusky, which is nearly 80 miles away from Saginaw in Michigan’s Thumb.

McConnachie, Alden and Smith attend SVSU, and Gough attends Central Michigan University.

McConnachie, an accounting freshman, details the stress she undergoes to make her job fit her school schedule.

“I usually have to rush back Thursday nights to work and leave Sunday to head back to Saginaw, and I have to do it every week,” she said.

Alden, a math junior, is a manager at Dairy Queen and has been traveling from Saginaw to work for three years. He said that it is worth it to keep his job.

He said that traveling to work has made him aware of changing gas prices.

“I pay attention to gas prices more now because I drive back and forth from Saginaw at least two times a week and sometimes more,” Alden said.

Although Gough, a social work senior, travels to CMU, she has similar issues with travel.

She lives in Sandusky and has a two-hour commute to save money from not staying on campus.

Gough also has to worry about her family and taking care of her son each week.

“It’s been hard managing my time because I have a 3-year-old son, and trying to take care of both school and home and work can be frustrating sometimes,” Gough said.

Kally Smith, a business freshman, will attend SVSU in the winter semester and she said that she is expecting to dedicate more time to school than she has before.

“I am going to lose a lot of sleep and free time, but working is what I need to do,” she said.

McConnachie said that she is also expecting to do extra work for the winter semester because she will take 16 credits rather than the 13 she took the previous semester.

However, she said that working at Dairy Queen is essential even if it means losing some sleep.

“I can’t find a job in Saginaw so if I didn’t work here (Dairy Queen), I wouldn’t have a job,” she said.