This summer originally just started with three classes. I’ve taken summer classes every summer since being in university. My first year I only had one (but it was Accounting II) and my second year I had two (an intro computer science course and an intro economics course). This year my three are all upper level marketing courses. I’m taking marketing research, consumer behavior, and marketing metrics.
Nine credit hours in the summer is apparently equivalent to taking 18 credit hours in a regular semester. I entirely believe that.
The classes themselves aren’t hard, but the amount of work it takes to keep ahead of the reading, to do the homework well, and to be able to do well on exams is ridiculous. I spend most of my evenings studying, and the one day I have off a week is also spent studying. The classes themselves are two and a half hours long, two days a week. This means I have a total of 15 hours of in-class time weekly.
This summer I don’t just have three classes, though. I have two internships as well.
I have an internship in the marketing department of the Zoo in the same city as my university where I come in multiple times a week. I’m totaling about 20 hours a week in the office, doing mostly social media and marketing research work. My work for this internship doesn’t really spill out of my time in office, so that’s a nice plus.
My second internship is a remote video internship with Spoon University. The schedule for this has been changing weekly, but most recently I’ve been producing a video a week. I sign up for the video on Monday and have the first draft out by Wednesday, doing corrections the rest of the week.
Additionally, on Sundays I work at a church daycare. The children I watch vary from babies to elementary students. This actually is the only source of income I have at the moment. On top of all of this, I’ve also been writing weekly articles for Odyssey on here and editing articles on weekends as contributing editor.
Needless to say, it’s been a little stressful.
So how am I holding myself together? I have a few strategies that I try not to stray from.
1. A Steady Sleep Schedule
This worked well for me during my Spring semester where I had to wake up multiple times a week between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. I have a set bedtime (usually around 9:30 p.m. because I am a proud grandmother) that I don’t stray from. I actually get grumpy when I’m made to stray from my bedtime. Having a solid base of sleep is incredibly important for staying not only sane but also healthy when you’re pushing your body to do more than it probably should.
2. One Day Off
When my schedule was slowly filling up with internships and classes, I made sure to have one day off a week where I could disconnect from everything. This summer that day is actually Saturday and I make sure to not schedule anything on this day. Sometimes I do have to do homework on this day, and I usually start it off by editing for Odyssey, but I can do all of this in my pajamas in bed so that’s OK with me.
3. Eating (Mostly) Healthy
I’ll admit I’m not the healthiest eater, but I’ve been making a more concentrated effort to bring healthy lunches to my internship or my classes as well as make sure I have snacks on hand at all times. Having enough energy during the day is really dependent on sleep and healthy eating, so this is an important thing to keep up.
4. Work Ahead
Keeping ahead of my coursework is hard for multiple reasons. The pace is twice that of a regular semester and, with three courses and limited time, it can be easy to get behind. To try to combat some procrastination, I’ve been about a day ahead in at least the reading for the three weeks of classes I’ve had so far.
5. A Well-Kept Schedule
I usually have an agenda at the beginning of the semester that I end up not using by the end, so I decided to utilize the calendar function on my phone this semester. As soon as I got my syllabi for the semester, I put everything into my phone and set reminders for assignments that are due or tests that are coming up. I might stop using an agenda but I won’t stop using my phone, now will I?
