Succeeding at your Fall Internship

As we work our way through the semester, I'm sure many of us are constantly busy juggling our internships with our classwork, jobs, and personal lives. Sometimes it can all be a bit overwhelming. Thankfully, there are plenty of ways we can plan our schedules and our responsibilities to make our lives a little bit less stressful.

Be Organized

It may seem easier said than done, but just a few small changes to your regular habits can make a huge difference in how well organized you are. Keep tabs on any assignments or deadlines you have coming up; this can be done with anything from a note in your phone, a mark on your calendar, or even a sticky note at your desk. Having set times during your day when you plan to do work for your internship will make your life easier, and the added knowledge of knowing exactly what you'll have to do and at what time can even feel a bit relieving!

Time Management

This one goes hand in hand with being organized. Having a well-defined schedule means knowing how much time you need to effectively complete your work. If a class or internship has given you an assignment that you know is going to take you a while to complete, like a paper or major project, make sure you budget enough time throughout the week in order to complete it. Nothing feels worse than hectically typing up a two-thousand-word paper the day before it's due knowing there's even more work to be completed afterwards. Situations like this can easily be avoided by breaking the assignment down and doing one to two pages or sections a day.

Take Care of Yourself

As important as being in control of your schoolwork and internship responsibilities may be, some things that are equally important to producing good work are your mental health and well-being. Make sure you're eating enough, drinking water, and giving yourself enough time to socialize and decompress without interfering with your work. Suffering from burnout is a real possibility, especially with a packed schedule, and it can interfere with your quality of life and your ability to succeed. Once again, this all goes back to organization and managing your time, but setting aside some much needed mental health time will feel rewarding and rejuvenating.