The balancing act

This semester is just flying by. I can’t believe it’s been a month since I last updated this blog. It felt like just yesterday I had uploaded my last entry. The weeks move at an unprecedented speed. Monday arrives and I wake up the next day to find that it’s Friday, and all of the deadlines for my big projects and papers have moved steadily closer. This semester is very different from all of the others so far. It’s true that each semester is different from the last, but this semester I feel like there is so much expected from me from my professors. I have so many papers and projects that all have deadlines that are way too close to the current date. I guess that just comes with being a senior. Although I feel busier this semester, I also feel more confident than I have in previous semesters. I believe this has to come from the experiences I’ve had over the past year, especially studying abroad. This semester is hard, but I feel like I’m dealing with the stress better.
Recently I’ve discovered what I’d like to do with my life, at least career wise. I want to get into economic policy analysis. I know that probably doesn’t sound too interesting to you, but I find it fascinating. I learned about this economic field this semester through my public policy class, and I’ve become more and more intrigued as the semester has gone on. It incorporates a lot of economic tools and theories that I’m familiar with, but it also allows for analysis on a more human, psychological level. I love economics and psychology and I’ve been looking for a way to combine them and I think this may just be the way to do that. I’ve been meeting with a career counselor to discuss my options for grad school and for getting a job. Considering what to do after my undergrad years is pretty intimidating and nerve wracking, but at the same time I’m excited at the prospect of moving to a new state and getting to know a new campus and town. Or, if I go the job route, I’d get to enter the work force and start building my career. I know at some point I’m going to get my Master’s degree, I’m just not sure if I want to take a year off and just work or try to get the degree while I work. Still figuring that out. But I’m excited at all of the future prospects, and that makes things easier.
My public policy class is not the only class that is changing the way I look at things. I’m also taking a high level German class that is focused on analyzing German literature, and although it’s above my level of comprehension, I still learn and engage in the class. The professor for that class is very understanding and is working to make sure that everyone in the class is getting something out of it, even though there is such a wide range of skill levels between all of us. Seriously…we have people in that class who have lived in Germany for a good part of their lives and are fluent in the language, and then you have people like me who can only keep up a casual conversation in German. I’m not only learning German in that class, but I’m also learning how to let go of my perfectionist side and let myself slide a little on the assignments, which, if you know me, is a big change. I’m starting to wonder, though, if I’ll ever use this language outside of academia. Maybe Spanish would be more useful. Maybe.
This semester I have a job on campus working in the undergraduate student services department in the business school. I’m the personal assistant to the study abroad coordinator for the business school, who is an awesome person and a blast to work with. There is a lot going on in that department, though, and it gets pretty hectic at times. But I love working there, and I’m glad that I was given the opportunity to work on campus. It gives me a chance to take my mind off all of the homework and projects I have and just focus on other things for a few hours.
During this fall I made it my goal to try and balance my academic and social lives better. In the past I’ve felt like I put my social life second to my academic life, and that lead to me staying in on some weekends and just working on assignments, or not enjoying a night with friends unless I had accomplished a certain amount of work. But this semester I’ve been forcing myself to take breaks, both on the weekends and during the weekdays, and the world hasn’t ended…so far. I feel better about myself when I know that I have the chance to hang out with friends and just chill once in a while. One thing I have taken away from this whole college experience thing is that life will always be a balancing act. Try as you might, you can’t be everywhere at once, so you have to make decisions about how much time to spend doing something, or which friend to hang out with and when. Sometimes you’ll accidentally piss somebody off because they feel like you’re slighting them, or you won’t be able to finish a project as soon as you’d like. But you have to try to maintain a balance or else you’ll just teeter and fall. So far I’m working the balancing act, although the dark clouds surrounding all of my projects that are due next month are threatening to change that.

Just gotta hang in there ‘til Thanksgiving break. A month and five days to go.