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The Intern Diaries: How I am Planning to Balance College and an Internship… In a Pandemic

The summer is about to come to an end, and I am not too upset because there is no fun way to spend your summer during a pandemic, so I’ve learned. My internship has been awesome this summer, and I have been feeling settled since the last time I wrote an intern diary. Since COVID began to grow and spread in Knoxville in mid-June, I have been interning for Smarter Searches remotely. This was not as scary or challenging as I thought it would be. Between Google Drive, Asana, Grammarly, and constantly texting Lani, I have been able to handle it, I would say gracefully. Next week, classes begin and I will start to go back into the office. 

Balancing an internship and being a full-time college student is very intimidating, but honestly, I feel like I’ve got this. I recently purchased an iPad Air, which has been the key to keeping my life together. Aside from Google Drive and Asana, which have been great communication between myself and the rest of the team at Smarter Searches, I realized I wanted the iPad Air to help me with organization and accountability. These are two huge parts of working remotely, I have to keep up with these on my own. Writing and brainstorming ideas for blogs on the app GoodNotes5 has been helpful and I am so excited to take notes on there when classes begin. I only have two in-person classes, so I have a feeling the iPad will come in handy when I need to take productive notes for my virtual courses. I’ve loved my new Airpod Pros from Apple, and that is strictly due to the noise-canceling feature; they are insanely helpful when it comes to my productivity level. I get so distracted by the smallest noises, and with school and my internship, I cannot afford to be distracted! These have been a total lifesaver. 

Honestly, I am looking forward to balancing school and interning at Smarter Searches. I never like to sit still, so I will be on my feet all the time between studying and writing blogs. Between Zoom calls for school while taking notes on my new iPad, and using Asana and Google Drive to communicate with Smarter Searches, I know I’ve got this!