How to balance full-time work + grad school

Friends, I am so happy to be reporting live on a glorious August afternoon to y’all. Whenever I take break from the blog I regret it so much because although I don’t consider myself a writer, I do loveeeee blogging and sharing tips and tricks and favorites and beautiful things in long form content style. Anyway, today I’m back on the blog with a long overdue post: how to balance full-time work + grad school.

I know, I know, you’re all wondering why now? Considering I am no longer in grad school and graduated well over a year ago. However, I have been asked this same question at least 10 times in the past couple weeks and now feels like a sign. Now that we’re out of the pandemic and people are getting their lives, in every way, back in their control, I feel like so many people are reconsidering their higher + continuing education plans. Maybe they’re going for a full two year+ graduate degree or taking a professional course for work, the balance needed is all the same.

At the top of the year, I enrolled in a professional development course at NYU and let me tell you, I was totally out of practice. There were some days I had no idea how to get all the work done and live and do creative projects and book club etc, etc etc. Part of that might have been too much on my plate however I know I had a ton of wonderful habits while I was in graduate school in the pandemic. So, if you’re looking for ideas and tips, here’s how I balanced life, grad school and all things adulting while working full-time and being a good human.

The basics:

• Most graduate programs allow flex in schedules and only require 5 credits at a time to be considered “3/4 or full-time” which allows you to qualify for financial aid or scholarships. For me, I only took two classes at a time. That was the max I personally felt I could do and going by the old undergrad math, each credit is ~3 hours of work/week. I didn’t find that to always be true but I knew even if I could flex, I didn’t have more than 15 hours a week to dedicate.
• I researched like crazy every single course, past assignments, syllabi, literally everything I could on each course so I could gauge what I was getting myself into. Some courses were harder to find than others but I felt like this was a great way to understand the workloads.

Weekly schedule: As someone who has never been the best at discipline, there was literally no way to get through grad school without having a strict schedule, day by day, hour by hour, to make the time work. Here’s what my evening 6pm-9:30pm schedule looked like:

• Monday night – grad school
  • For me, most grad school assignments were due on Sunday nights. I would spend Monday nights reviewing what was upcoming, tackling “low touch” assignments like discussion boards and reading and then build outlines for the “high touch” assignments due soon
• Tuesday night – creative/book club/ boards & advisory councils
  • Please don’t ask why I had so many commitments because honestly, I don’t know, and am a bit crazy and thrive in chaos which my therapist doesn’t prefer. However, throughout grad school I sat on a Community Council, Young Feminist Advisory Council and was helping to launch a YP board. Again, I do not recommend this level of commitment outside of work and grad school when you are balancing the two. It was not impossible but there were days where I felt like I was running myself into the ground and often not sure why
• Wednesday night – social plans
  • I purposely scheduled social plans, fun work events (when I was oversaw culture + events) and picked up wine so anyone could come over for a #WineDownWednesday. Wednesdays became a staple social evening for casual gatherings. If I wanted to host a dinner party or have a more involved social night, I would swap Wednesday and Thursday night and have two back-to—back evenings of creative/book club/ boards & advisory council work
• Thursday night – creative/book club/ boards & advisory councils
  • Same flow as Tuesday night unless I swapped social evening plans with Wednesday. If I was feeling burnt out or really tired, I would allow Thursdays to be a relaxing night and go to bed early knowing that Fridays usually had a heavy work load
• Friday night – 2 hours of grad school
  • When I was at my last job, a start-up, Fridays were busy working days. It was the first day, really afternoon, of the week where I had the most free time given my counterparts lived in other countries and were always hours ahead. Fridays I would knock out as much computer and heads down work as possible, take a walk/early dinner break, go heads down for grad school then finish the evening with a movie or YouTube catch-up or reading. Not the average Friday night for a 20-something but it totally worked for me
• Saturday – half day for social plans, half day for grad school
  • When I lived in Raleigh, most of my friends were working from home and I could see them mid day for lunch or grab a coffee in the morning. I did have a few friends who were still going into the office during the pandemic and so Saturday mornings we would get together for a walk or play board games or hang out on their respective porches. I would also make time for farmer’s market trips on Saturday to get some groceries, flowers and often, make that time social time. In Austin, the city was more open  and Saturdays would be open for exploring the city, finding art events, getting brunch and just having fun a new space.
• Sunday – half day for life, half day for creative/book club/ boards & advisory councils
  • Sundays were always a bit of a toss up day, depending on what needed more attention. An ideal Sunday would include watching church virtually and going to a workout class as well as any house tending like laundry and cleaning up. During busy creative weeks, the focus was creative work after life tasks then on busy grad school weeks, especially closer to the end of the semester, I would often have to find time for grad school work on Sundays. The weekends were the main days I would work on group projects and have team zoom calls. Most of the people I met getting their masters in data analytics or digital communication analytics (like me) or MBAs all worked part to full time so weekends gave us a bit more flexibility to meet as groups.

Food + fitness: I will say that the life part of food and fitness was the most difficult to maintain while balancing 9-5 and grad school. I leaned a lot into meal services like Factor and Hello Fresh quick meal options and Tovola. I generally don’t enjoy cooking so I wouldn’t want to have meals that took longer than 20 minutes to prep and my weekly grocery order would include a rotisserie for each chopped salad lunches. I did allow myself to have two meals out a week, one lunch or breakfast and one dinner.

In the fitness category, my goal was two workouts a week and trying to have a consistent sleep schedule. I should have definitely worked out more but as you know, hindsight is 20/20. Especially when I was still working from home and fitness studios were open, I would schedule as many mid day workouts as possible. This way, when it was time for my evening work plans, I would have my workout for the day completed and could just focus on my schedule and having a meal. During high stress weeks, I would take an 8:30pm candlelight heated yoga class on Sunday and/or Wednesdays. These classes were like therapy and fitness in one. In this class was when I realized I needed to take a break from a grad school class after my dad died. It was also in the class I started to challenge my own work/life balance and my unhealthy relationship with sleep. In Austin, I didn’t have many high impact workouts and mostly focused on hot yoga and walking and an occasional Pilates class.

General life: Referenced above with my 2x/week eating out rule, when I could, I made these dining outings a social event so I could enjoy my “free” meals of the week and see friends at the same time. Because my time was so limited, stacking both priorities was incredibly helpful. If I wanted to go the extra mile, I would have my laundry going, house getting cleaned, dog getting groomed, groceries being shopped for and Target order all being prepped at the same time. I really learned how to effectively multi-task in a way that didn’t include me splitting my focus but moreso including outsourcing where I could.

One of my biggest tips if you are trying to work and go to school full-time is to find help where you need it and outsource the things you 1. Don’t want to do and 2. Don’t need to do. For me, there were a few key places I could do this:

1. Grooming my dog – I have a lab who sheds and as much as it was possible for me to groom him, I started having him bathed and groomed when I first moved to Raleigh. My apartment community actually had a dog spa where you could bathe and blow dry your dog with free shampoo and such but honestly, it was too much for me. So pre-grad school and even now, I outsource monthly baths for my dog.
2. Grocery shopping – The only thing I hate more than cooking is grocery shopping. Nothing about being in a grocery store brings me joy or makes me feel like picking the exact box of pasta with my own hands is that important to me. I’ve outsourced groceries for quite a long time, even pre-pandemic, and still use a mix of curbside pick-up and home delivery. The only store I will go into is Trader Joe’s, with a list, and rarely on a Sunday. Most stores have free curbside pick-up so this is a free outsource activity.
3. Home tasks – When I lived in Charleston, I didn’t have a washer and dryer. It first felt like a hassle but when I discover I would have my clothes washed, folded and organized for $1.80/lb, this was a hassle no more. I did have to pick up and drop off my clothes but I would plan this activity on days I was already going out and would drop off early and pick up on my way home. There was a cost to this but it was SO beyond worth it to me. When I moved to Austin, I could manage my own laundry but with living in a bigger space, wanted to outsource cleaning. I started quarterly with deep cleans then moved to every other month then at one point, monthly cleans. This would help me get all the pesky, but necessary, tasks like cleaning baseboards and washing windows and cleaning the fridge done without me actually having to do it. Although I am no longer in grad school, I do find having a bi-weekly cleaning services to be money well spent. This is of course a paid outsource activity but to me, worth every dollar spent.

As if this post wasn’t already long enough, I would be remiss to not mention the things I wish I had done differently:

1. 1. Incorporating more walks in my schedule for both my dog and I. I did not walk my dog enough (we had a small dog park in our neighborhood he could run and play in every day) but I totally wish I did even if just for my own mental health and physical wellness.
   2. There were definitely weeks where I prioritized work instead of sleep which left me feeling really burnt out. If I’ve learned nothing else over the past years, I have learned how important healthy sleep habits are for my overall wellness.
   3. I should have taken more breaks. My dad died my last semester of grad school and instead of taking the right breaks, I had a mental health break mid semester and failed my capstone AKA the most important class in the grad school journey. I was able to take the course again in the Fall, pass and have my grad replaced but I should have probably not taken classes that semester.
   4. In the midst of all this, I changed jobs twice and moved twice. If you listen to nothing else, I would not recommend any of this while balancing graduate school and full-time work, if you value your sanity.

Overall, my advice to people thinking about going to graduate school while working full-time come down to these three tips: 1. Make a schedule and stick to it 2. Don’t neglect nutrient meals and moving your body 3. Get comfortable with outsourcing life tasks.

Of course, my experience was unique and does not begin to cover the balance if you are raising children or making a 2 hour commute each way or taking care of aging parents. I feel like I was able to manage the balance as a single woman with a flexible job and just a dog.

If you’ve balanced full-time work and graduate school, I would love to know in the comments! If you’re looking for someone who I think does this well, I would recommend Gabby Whiten. She is a such a gem! She’s a PhD student, creative, YouTuber and so much more. She actually created all my visuals when I branded the blog and worked on branding for several friends. Website | YouTube | Instagram

Thanks so much for reading friends! Please share with your friends who are considering going to graduate school/pursuing higher education while working a 9-5. Chat soon <3