Treat finding a job like two classes

My friend told me the other day to treat my job search like I would treat two classes worth of work.  Though this was just his way of illustrating how important it should be for to me to find a job where I can gain a permanent paycheck and hopefully job satisfaction as well, it really hit home.  I have been so concentrated throughout my college career thus far on academic and extracurricular work I have neglected to spend large amounts of time each week trying to find a job for when I graduate.  He even suggested that it should come before my academics because while I will be done with school in May, I will be working for the rest of my life until retirement.  I understood his logic, especially in light of the economy and major job cuts, but I am not quite sure if I want to put my academics on the backburner.  I will try to free up more time to work on getting a job, but my last semester is pretty difficult so I don’t know how effective I will be at this pursuit—sad to say because of how important it is.