This summer, I had a 10-week communications internship in Richmond, Virginia. The transition from the end of spring semester to working an internship and a service job at the same time was jarring to say the least.
I’ve never worked in a professional environment like that one before and I had to balance my different jobs alongside moving and sleeping on a futon throughout the summer. I also felt like I had to use a different part of my brain than I did in school — from navigating a professional environment to figuring out my style of work to having 10+ hour work days that challenged me in more ways than one.
But, I was wildly grateful for my experience since I was able to challenge myself and learn more about my future career while actually participating in the so-called “real world.”
As the summer came to a close and I finally found a balance in my work schedule, I was offered the amazing opportunity to continue my internship remotely during the fall semester. I immediately jumped at the offer because it was a win-win in all aspects. I could continue working throughout the semester in a remote job — and a job was definitely needed — and I could continue strengthening my skills in communications practices with a fantastic organization that I was very lucky to be a part of.
Now, instead of learning how to transition from school to work, I now have to learn how to transition from work to both. From my experience in classes, I take my time on assignments and have a terrible habit of procrastinating. The thing is, you really can’t do that in a job or internship, and you especially shouldn’t do that when you have multiple classes and extracurriculars to balance on top. So what I’m learning now is: the task of balance.
The first week of classes came to a close and while it felt easy to balance everything then, especially with the stereotypes of sylly week with little to no assignments to do, the semester is going to start picking up and fast, as I enter my senior year. But, with my experience in both my past courses and internship, here’s how I’m attempting to make the transition smoother.
- Make the transition fun
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Personally, I love remote work and classes. While most of my classes are in person, they’re all in the afternoon while my internship is from 9am-12pm online. When I say make the transition fun I mean to romanticize working from home in a way. There’s a lot more flexibility for a work-from-home job or internship than an in person one in some ways. For example, you can listen to your own music or put on a background show (personally watching Gilmore Girls while working and studying gives me so much motivation) or you can wake up a little later but still have the time to log on and accomplish what you need to do. I also think it’s fun to just experiment with where you want to work and how you want to do it whether that’s trying out a 5-9 before the 9-5 or checking out new study and work spots.
- Prioritize your health
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Burnout is very real and I felt that a lot over the summer. Slacking on sleep is always my biggest vice and I still struggle with that. But it’s so important to prioritize sleep, food, water and movement because it’ll make you feel so much better in the long run.
- Find a space that works
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Your space is very crucial to where you work and it can help your mood and motivation in so many ways. Throughout the summer and part of my transition back to school, most of my work was done from my bed. It’s a great perk to be able to still work while in your sweats, but sometimes it can make me feel a bit lazy. So, my suggestion and challenge this semester is finding a space that works. Whether it’s sitting outside on a nice day or going to the library or just making my desk the ultimate workspace, switching things up can definitely help with motivation and mindset when it comes to school and work. It’s also important to make sure you’re separating your spaces, because while my bed or couch may be nice to do work on, I feel like there’s never truly a break or space away from work.
- Make your own deadlines
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With the balance between working from home and being in class, it’s important to make deadlines and create organization. Like I said earlier, procrastination always gets the best of me, but when I have so much on my plate, there’s really little time to procrastinate or I’ll see the repercussions. My saving grace has been my planner and Google Calendar so I can completely map out my days and weeks in order to fit everything in, meet the big deadlines for class and work, and still have a social life in the mix. If you create deadlines for yourself you give yourself a little breather if something comes up and you need to make the last minute deadline. It can be very helpful having this buffer when you’re working on many things at once.
- Have a work-life balance
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My biggest fear post-grad is a poor work-life balance and that I’ll lose a lot of the social support and miss the constant events that happen in college. So, before I graduate what I’m working on is balancing work-life-school so the transition can be easier in the future. What’s nice about a work-from-home job is that it’s only Monday-Friday, just like classes, so you still have the weekends to have fun and hang out with friends. The big thing for me is balancing work and school by keeping work purely in the mornings and classes and assignments in the afternoons. A good social life is key to keeping the motivation and avoiding burnout because you want to still enjoy your time in school while prepping or working for your career. This means you need to be intentional with your time — maybe it’ll help me kick procrastination.
Having an internship while still being in school has definitely been a learning curve, but I’m hoping if I stick to these habits I can make this semester a successful one, and maybe it’ll help you too.