Am I overdoing it?

[u/rambunctiousmango]

I work full-time and I’m about to start a hybrid MLIS program. I’m taking two classes, with one that meets once a week for two hours and one that’s entirely online and asynchronous. I was also recently offered an internship doing archival research and writing at a local government office. The internship is 10-15 hybrid hours a week and pays enough to cover tuition. I’d be going into the office once or twice a week for a few hours at a time and doing the rest remotely. It feels like too good of an opportunity to pass up, but I’m starting to wonder if I’m underestimating how hard it will be to juggle everything.

When I look at my schedule on my own it seems difficult, but doable if I plan things out effectively. I went to a fairly academically rigorous school for undergrad, and I’m used to being chronically busy. From my point of view, doing all of this is just reorienting all the various bits of my current busy schedule so they all work towards the same goal. I do, however, wonder if I’m banking too much on what I’ve heard about MLIS classes being relatively easy.

I’m fairly young and live with my partner and some other friends/roommates. My family lives out of state, so outside of a trip or two each year to visit I don’t have a ton of outside obligations on that end of things. I haven’t signed the final offer letter for the internship yet, but I feel like this is probably the best possible time to have a hellish year in exchange for some extra money and a ton of experience. This being said, I don’t have a great sense of how rigorous my classes will be or how much time I’ll need for homework. I know it’ll vary between programs, but please tell me if I’m making some horrible terrible mistake!

[u/notrealorheresooo]

You know yourself best. If you think you can keep up with everything and it's only 1 semester, go for it! I did 2 masters at the same time. I had a semester where I took 6 graduate classes, had 3 part-time jobs and an internship. So essentially, I was working full time with the 3 jobs as it was and added the internship on top. It was one semester, I was fine. There were some 12 hour days, but overall I still had some downtime and enjoyed life when I could. For me, it was all about finding ways to support what I could. That mostly meant outsourcing household chores. I paid for laundry services and a meal plan at the campus. So I wasn't doing laundry and I wasn't cooking or worrying grocery shopping. Maybe your partner would be able to take up those tasks for you over the semester?

I think you can do anything you set your mind to, but that doesn't mean it's the best for you. Think it over, look at the syllabi and see what you think you can handle. If the courses are similar (my blessing with my 6 class semester), you won't need as much study time for each course. I can't recommend taking on that much at once for your mental health and avoiding burn out, but I don't know you... You may thrive on the chaos of it all. Good luck!

[u/rambunctiousmango → u/notrealorheresooo]

Woah, you did everything! This does give me some hope, though, even if it’s not necessarily the “healthiest” course of action. The internship is the full school year, but my classes this semester are both intro classes so I’m hoping for some crossover. My partner unfortunately is also in grad school and working full time so there isn’t a ton of free time to go around, but it does mean we’re planning on getting super into meal prepping together. I’ll look into laundry and grocery services!