Blending Personal and Professional

            As a graduating senior, I have spent a decent amount of time this semester considering where I want to work next year. Unfortunately, I have not narrowed down the options for my job, but I have at least narrowed the location. I started the year with a short preference list of Nashville, Chicago, and Indianapolis (in no particular order) and an open mind to any opportunity that comes my way. While my top three cities have plenty of job options and would be fun to live in, I was not yet willing to limit my job search to specific locations. I wanted to keep my career as my top priority, rather than distance, city size, or any other personal factors. However, after thinking about this issue over the last couple of months, I’ve realized that my personal life and professional life cannot remain separate.

            The realization happened one weekend this semester when I made the journey back home to visit my family and help them with some tasks. As I pulled into the familiar South Bend, Indiana, city limits, I immediately began to smile and feel at home. As I drove through the familiar streets of my hometown, it hit me: I can’t move to Nashville next year because I love my home way too much. As I gave this feeling more thought, it made me think about all the other ways my career would shape my personal life. If I went to Nashville, it would be much more difficult to make a trip home in only a day or two. If I moved to Chicago, I would have to deal with commuter traffic every time I wanted to see my brother’s football games. If I moved to Nashville, I would only know one other person and could get lonely. If I moved to Chicago, I wouldn’t be able to drive from Point A to Point B in the winter when the wind chill is freezing. While these factors seem irrelevant to my career, they are extremely important to my happiness. I began to think of times at college when walking on campus was too cold, or I couldn’t go home to visit my family, or I missed various family events, or when I just felt lonely. These are things that make me unhappy, which can hold me back in all areas of life, especially professionally.

           By looking at all the aspects of these two towns (and many others like them) that would make me unhappy next year, I began to think of all the ways Indianapolis would be a good fit. I’d only be an hour away from my brother and sister, only an hour from family and friends at Purdue, no more than three hours from good old South Bend, and in the same city as a number of close friends. There are plenty of jobs that I have already found that would be a great starting point for my career, and there is a lot to do in all areas of the city. If I ever felt homesick or overwhelmed, good company (and comfort) wouldn’t be hard to find. If I’ve learned anything about myself over the last four years, I’ve learned that these are crucial aspects of my life that keep me going.

           With my Communications degree, there are a lot of jobs that I could do next year. However, there are not a lot of places I could go and be happy doing it. The more I thought about my personal happiness, the more I realized that I couldn’t separate my personal life and professional life. They affect each other equally, and I need to set myself up for success in both to be truly happy and start my career.

Tapping Into My Resources

            In the Liberal Arts Career Development Office, we have one of our biggest events of the year coming up: Career Week. Career Week will take place April 11^th through April 15^th, but we’ve been planning for it all semester, if not longer. Since this is a week-long event, we all have certain days or parts of the week that we are in charge of, and for me it’s Tuesday (with another intern, Lisa B.).

            The theme for the Tuesday of Career Week is Bulking Up with Core Training, and we have four workshops planned for the afternoon. We started the semester with an ideal line-up of guest speakers that we wanted to lead the workshops, but things don’t always go as planned. For one workshop in particular, I spent weeks trying to get in contact with multiple potential speakers. Eventually, we only had about a week (maybe even less) left before our information was due for our speakers and workshops, and I still had that one spot to fill.

           While I understood that cancelling the one workshop was a potential solution, I wasn’t willing to give up trying. Suddenly, everyone I met was an opportunity to fill this spot. Every time I met someone new or spoke with an old friend, I’d ask myself: “Would this person be a good speaker for this topic, or do they know someone who would be?” Sometimes the person was a great speaker, but wasn’t qualified to speak on the topic. Sometimes the person was just a fellow student, but they were in organizations that had connections to someone who would be a great fit. Sometimes the person had been there all along, and I just didn’t think of it. And sometimes, the person I met was exactly what I needed. Everyone and every interaction was suddenly an opportunity.

           Given the option, I would have preferred to save myself the stress and have the Tuesday schedule locked in as soon as possible. However, adversity is a great learning opportunity. My new outlook on my tasks was successful, and I was able to fill all four spots just in time. I found that this form of thinking that focused on my current network and tapped into resources I already had was the most successful method for getting my job done. Looking forward, I am much more aware of how I can tap into my personal life to accomplish my professional tasks, and I am more willing to speak up with the people who can help.

Staying Motivated Senior Year

When I look back on my first three years at Purdue, I can remember long days and even longer nights filled with meetings, extra curricular work, and trying to stay up to date with homework. There were some weeks when I had three meetings every night and wouldn’t get home until 10pm, on a good night. However, as I have entered the last semester of my college career, I find that my daily schedule has changed drastically. Rather than having three meetings a night, I maybe will have three meetings a week. While my first couple of years came with the challenges of being busy beyond belief, second semester of senior year has presented me with a different challenge: staying motivated with a relaxed schedule. Here are some tips that I have learned while trying to stay on track this semester:

1. What to Do – I know a number of busy people who use a to-do list to keep themselves on track, but what I’ve learned this semester is that to-do lists are helpful regardless of your schedule. With a more relaxed schedule, it is easy to think: “I’m not busy and I don’t have much work to do.” The problem with this is that it makes it easier to forget the tasks and chores you actually do have to do. To help myself from forgetting about homework or tasks, I make a list of things I need to get done in the week ahead. This way, when I start to think about my lax schedule and all my free time, I have my list to double check and see if my relaxed feelings are accurate or misleading.

2. Work before Netflix – When you indulge in free time during your relaxed schedule, it’s easy to think: “I only have about an hour of work to do, I can watch a couple episodes on Netflix then get to it.” However, by relaxing before working, you often times can set yourself up for failure. Those two episodes can turn into half a season or a two-hour nap, and throw your semi-planned schedule off. It’s easier to stay relaxed when you’re relaxing, which makes it harder to get work done. On the flip side, it’s easier to stay working when you’ve been working. Therefore, it’s easier on your stress level and daily schedule to get all your day’s work out of the way before indulging in relaxing activities that could keep you from getting your work done.

3. Eyes on the Prize – Second semester senior year comes with plenty of distractions: job searches, last hoorays with college friends, more time to Netflix binge, and so on. I’ve found that when these activities distract me from doing my best job academically, I simply remind myself what I need to get done to graduate, and re-focus on that. It’s important to spend time looking for jobs, and I would recommend enjoying your last semester together with your college friends. However, the main priority is getting that degree, or the other things won’t matter.

These tips and strategies have helped me adapt to my new lifestyle and make the most of my last semester on campus. By focusing on the work I have left to do here and the importance of doing it well in order to graduate, I am better able to prioritize my life and enjoy the end of my college career.