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How Do I Progress in My Current State of Education/Work?
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Not necessarily. If the Comm subjects tend to be easier, then doing a Comm subject in place of an Eng subject in one semester would cut down the workload a bit.
The trouble is whether subjects are usually substituted/mixed each semester to maintain a regular workload, or stacked to overload. Although each student can adjust that scheduling for themselves as they prefer.So then the question would be whether OP prefers to stack subjects and increase workload to save time, considering the failed subjects and late change to the degree, or stick to a regular (or even lighter) workload with mixed subjects, and let it take even longer.
Turn current job into a career?
You're obviously not cut-out/focused enough etc for uni, so full-time work might be the better option for you and revisit uni/tafe at a later stage
sure do commerce if you like it. eng+comm is a great combo, kinda wish I had done it myself.
the few people I know who did that seemed to prefer working on the comm side anyway, which it kinda sounds like you are already doing and enjoying, so makes sense to head in that direction a bit. but technical and business skills together are hard to beat.What year uni are you in? It sounds like you are in second, with a couple of fails already? Which isn't too late to comfortably switch to a dual degree. And plenty of people fail something in engineering, those first couple years are the hardest. I remember one large 2nd year class, first lesson the teacher asked everyone who was repeating to put their hands up. It was about a quarter of the room.
I added Arts to my Eng degree after first year, to do languages and just a bit more fun stuff after not liking the first year of Eng too much. Second year was worse, failed a couple of things etc. But something clicked when repeating them, and I ended up liking it all more, doing better, and figuring out how to balance things a bit better. My 3rd and 4th year results smashed 1st and 2nd and I ended it all okay. I think the later subjects were just also easier, and more leniently marked perhaps. Or I studied more, dunno.
One thing that really helped me out though was not rushing to finish on time. An Eng degree takes 4 years, dual degrees take 5. Adding the dual degree after a year, and having to repeat a few things, meant that I would have had to overload a little just to finish in 5.5 years, but 6 years would give me a bit of breathing room.
So instead of doing the normal 4 subjects plus occasional overload to 5, I think I did 4 with occasional under load to 3. And never more than 3 engineering subjects in a semester, plus one Arts. Something like that, was too long ago to remember now. Anyway it made things way more enjoyable, and let me get some results I could be proud of, and only really made a difference of 4 months or whatever.Also meant that the rare times a company asked to see my academic record, I had a solid improvement on paper that made my poor performance early on less of an issue
"I'm struggling to put time into my studies"
and yet you want to continue to get a degree despite your to date really poor academic success.
Not everyone who does uni study is an academic and a lot don't complete, drop out or fail. maybe you are not cut out for uni study, it takes sacrifice, time and discipline to get through it all
concentrate on turning your casual job into a permanent one firstMaybe drop your study and focus on your job, you can resume the degree within 10 years without problems usually.
Agree with others and yourself even that your main strength is obviously your current job and experience, so I would look to transferring to a double degree.
However you have a great opportunity now to ask you current job (manager/higher) what they need in the company and effectively tailor your education to meet those. Unless it's extremely niche, this will let you be especially valuable to the company and pursue something which your current industry actually needs, rather than rolling the dice on what might be useful (which is what most other uni students do).
I wouldn't drop out completely though - while your current job might not mind, any future employers will at the very least note your lack of a degree, and it'll also bar you from further education (specialised masters, etc) that you might want to do or that future employers might want to pay you to do, in the future.
Defer for a year. Work fulltime. See if this career path is right for you. Reassess then.
Get out of Engineering. No point having crap grades, people are snobby about grades. Do you even like it if you are failing? Take 6 months and figure out what you do like.
Some people just want to see you got decent grades (credits / distinctions) to demonstrate you can learn stuff from a book. It is to absolve them for any responsibility from taking a chance on a hire or validate their own opinions.
To be honest I failed a subject in first year Computer Science and got out of that pretty quick and went into Commerce. I knew I was a borderline credit / distinction student. Did an MBA (with a top 10 global university) and still a credit / distinction student. Something you just know ain't you thing.
You've identified your shortfall - poor grades.
You've identified the cause of the shortfall - insufficient time invested.
Your solution does not in any way attempt to solve the cause of the problem.
(Tongue in cheek - maybe that's where your engineering woes are coming from.)
I interview about 20 candidates each year for engineering positions at my work. If I'm honest, a degree (or at least the engineering degrees in my line) is generally only required to tick off an interview item. I look for positive attitude over technical skills, as (in my line) technical experience comes from on-the-job experience. Right attitude goes a long way vs a poor attitude candidate with glowing degree/technical. This is all within reason though.
Also, a double or triple degree doesn't necessarily make you more employable over bachelors. In my line, it just means you're older when you interview.
That being said, I used to study Law, then changed to Medicine and then ended up in Engineering. I have many Law friends that ended up doing business, I have medical friend that in their final year changed to becoming a detective for Victoria Police.
Depending on what you want out of life, you may not even need a degree. From very young, we're taught to believe that we need a degree to secure employment (which really comes down to getting money). One of my friends dropped out of school in year 10, and another never went to University. In the case of the year 10 drop-out friend, he followed an apprenticeship and started his own business. Similarly, the friend that never went to Uni started his own business - both earn significantly more than I do today. Not saying it was easy for them, but the degree vs non-degree is only as valuable as what you would do with the time.
What they gained was life experience such that when I graduated (delayed due to a few course changes) I was 6 years behind them in income and life. I now run my own business too, but I'm several years behind them.
So I'd suggest you find a mentor in the area or lifestyle you want to achieve. I'd suggest to NOT compare yourself to your friends and what they're earning or not earning. As an extreme example, just because you're less poor than them doesn't mean you're not poor
No harm in picking work over education (or indeed another course), but just be sure that it properly contributes to the future you want.
I have several friends who were in a similar situation to you although a bit more progressed in their degrees. All sitting at around 50-60 WAM in engineering, studies all finished but stuck in limbo from graduating because with those marks (and multiple fails) it was impossible to get an internship.
My advice would be jump ship sooner rather than later. You don't want to be at the end of your degree working at Kmart and waiting for the next internship season to open up to compete with the new cohort of applicants with better marks/experience/no fails/etc.
FWIW, i had the same thoughts during my engineering/geology degree, as in, was average in marks and questioning if it was the right area, was enjoying my casual job and seriously considering it as a long term job. 2 years later having miraculously scored a paid internship (pretty sure they all are paid for engineers at least, i know my commerce friends were required to do unpaid) haven't looked back. I'm one to always look at the long game and sure the casual job would be nice at the moment but 5 - 10 years down the line you may hit a brick wall and IMHO engineering gives great career progression while pushing you.
Grind through the tough stuff and you'll get rewarded.
Won't you struggle more with uni if you do a double degree?
There's higher requirements for admission into a double degree course so I would think that the workload/quality of work is higher.