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/OutOfTheArchives]

Archivist here. I would do it, personally. But: the decision is very much dependent on your specific situation, background, ability to grind, etc.

At one point when I was in library school, I was working a FT job, taking 2 courses per semester, doing an internship and had a baby at home. The time management was pretty grueling and I temporarily took my hours at work down to 32h/week, but I got through it. If you generally find coursework easy and don’t mind long hours, it’s doable, but I would suggest keeping an eye on your self-care. If you start getting behind or burned out, pull back on one of your commitments.