The semester has just started, and like every semester before, I’m trying to stay wary of what’s to come—the semester tends to start out slow, and it can easily lull a student into a false sense of security.  You’re coasting along, and the next thing you know, it’s week five and you have deadlines and exams in every class, all at once. On top of that, you have other considerations: it’s going to be Engineers Week before we know it, and the Career Fair is just around the corner!

I’m not sure what my plans are for Engineers Week yet, and I’m lucky enough to already have an internship lined up, but it doesn’t hurt to drop by the Career Fair to work on approaching people to network and build those professional skills.  Whenever I have to approach someone in that kind of setting, I try to remember my favorite character from the Princess Bride:

It’s a meme, but that doesn’t make it any less relevant to understanding how to approach potential employers.  Or even just connecting to people through LinkedIn! Just remember to be courteous and professional.

But back to where I started:  I’m wary of what the semester has in store for me.  I know that time management in an academic setting has always been a weakness for me.  I’m a returning student, and while I have been back in school long enough to be aware of the expectations and lifestyle that comes with being a student, I still struggle to strike the right balance between school and work and home.  I’m hardly the only one with this issue, but there’s a huge difference between simply working and leaving your work at the job when you go home, and being a student, where homework is where most of your work needs to go—and that’s on top of the hours already put in inside the classroom.  This year has been particularly challenging for me, because it’s the first year I haven’t worked full time hours during the school year—which may sound like a load off, but I’ve found that it comes with its own set of challenges.

What kind of challenges?  As it turns out, I have a bad habit of overestimating how much I’m capable of doing, and as a result, end up overloading myself.  It’s less of a problem when my only commitment is to a job, but each class is like a job in itself, and each semester it takes me time to find a new balance.  Without having to dedicate as much time to going to work, my first response was, “I can take more classes!” It sounds good in theory, but again, I overestimated, and in my attempt to take on more classes, I ended up shooting myself in the foot.

My goal for this semester (and for all future semesters), therefore, is to work on time management to allow me to strike a balance without overloading myself.  It is doubly a personal and a professional goal–if I find that balance personally, I will improve both professionally and academically.

In order to achieve this goal, I want to start by becoming more aware of my current load:  what obligations and tasks do I currently have? How much time/energy does each one require?  What needs to be prioritized? Does any particular obligation or task give me more trouble than another?  Answering these questions will give me a time frame to take care of each obligation or task, and by prioritizing, I can begin tailoring a schedule for my current tasks, based on time, priority, and other considerations.

For example, these blog posts are fairly straightforward and easy, and although they take some time to reflect on and write them, I can do them on my phone while I’m on the bus or the train–one less thing I have to worry about when I sit down to work on homework.  Meanwhile, the problem set portion of the homework takes much longer, and requires more concentration–so I should plan to spread out the work over the course of an hour-to-two hour blocks through the week. Etc etc for other tasks, until I have a nice round schedule.

And then, the key thing for me:  will taking on another obligation/task be feasible?  My instinct at the start of the semester was to say yes, but after a couple weeks of class and reflecting over my time constraints, I have realized the answer is, probably not; at least, not without having adverse effects on the things I already have on my plate.

So, here goes!  I’ll work on improving managing my time, and share my results as the semester goes on.