After a year and a half at Heller, I’m finally approaching my last semester as a grad student. It can feel sometimes like I have one foot in Heller and one foot out the door. I’m still focused on my assignments and school projects, while also thinking about potential jobs and what my next moves might be. Do I want to move back home to Philadelphia, or try living someplace new? What kind of work environment do I see myself thriving in? What are the next steps I should take to reach my goals?
This is an exciting place to be in my life, but it is also challenging. It can be hard to stay focused and motivated when I’m so close to being finished with my degrees. I keep myself on track in a number of ways. First, I stay as organized as possible so nothing slips through the cracks. I do this with the help of my Google calendar, a journal, and many, many sticky notes. For me, it’s much harder to forget a task if it’s written down on a list!
To keep focused, I also make sure to find the time for self-care and socially distanced time with friends. In the COVID era, it’s so easy to feel isolated, which shifts my focus away from my school work. Seeing friends and engaging in self-care is just as important to maintaining motivation as keeping organized and on schedule. Spending time chatting in a friend’s backyard leaves me feeling refreshed and provides me with a much-needed breath of fresh air. This picks my spirits up, and allows me to renew my motivation so I can get back to work.
I also make time to think about potential future jobs, moving away from Waltham, and starting a new stage of my life. I find that it’s important to set aside this time, otherwise thinking about these topics seeps into the time I need to spend on writing my Capstone paper, for instance. Setting aside time to think about the future, rather than trying to suppress these thoughts, allows me more time to concentrate on the work that still needs to get done.
I know that my last semester at Heller will be difficult for many reasons. The classes will be challenging, I’ll be worrying about future plans, and I’m sure I’ll feel nostalgic looking back on my previous semesters. But I feel prepared knowing that I have the skills and resources to take care of myself and to stay on track.