_{Let me explain first with my definition of working and studying.
Working = Completing a task. In the industry, you need to be professional, and deliver fine works.
Studying = Basically you already know what you are lack of, and seek to improve that particular weakness by studying.}

I am still a student and my school always strives to work their student to their limit. Whether the limit is creating their best artwork, or pushing their skill sets to the limit I do not know, but I probably guess it's artwork. You may be confused by now because you think they are the same, well, I say no. Why? Because these two are based on two different objectives, hence the action driven by different motives isn't the same. Still confused?

Let's get that into a little more detail, I'll start off with the intention to push artwork to the limit. First, this case is similar to the industry environment, you have a director/client, and you are working one-one. Given a specific task, and it's to be done in his desire. So your assigned task now has to be done and you are relying what skills you have and what knowledge you know to get the things done. You cannot afford to lose the time doing other things or you'll lose the job.

Okay, so what if the intention is to push skills instead? Rather than focusing what great work you can do, the emphasis is given to how great you can get your work done. Nuff' said? You skills grow better and so is your work although you probably need more time in this process.

And maybe you start to question this, can't we learn while we are working to produce great artwork? Of course we can, and this is the point why I'm addressing this topic.

In our school, we are always given tasks, specific ones, same goes in the industry. And there are dozen more out there, each having different sets of knowledge to be done. The job is always different, but the skills that you have is all similar, in fact they grow in general. However most lecturers focus to guide the students on how to produce great work for that specific task instead of their weaknesses in skills. For that matter, the students are guided in their visions not the students', works are created with their knowledge not the students'. Let's throw two questions to ponder upon.
a.) Do we want to create great artwork? Or
b.) Do we want to be a great artist?

I don't know if you get what I mean, but this is the fine line that I'm talking about. One have to think in psychological manner in order decipher the syntax in our daily flow. I was at between this two term, working and studying, but I realized that one has to be prioritized, I choose to study more as the school doesn't provide all and improve what I can do with my work. I may have insufficient time to produce great artwork, but this is the path that I choose and I don't think I have the time to do the same when I start working in the industry. So why not make some mistakes now? We wouldn't risk it in working environment, would we?

I know not why I'm writing this, perhaps to justify my personal belief for the sake of my own pleasure, although I think nobody will agree or understand. Just in case you know how to correct me, please do.