Adjusting to Work Life

What's the biggest adjustment from college life to work life?

Amazingly, I didn't get back from college until the Friday right before the Dwellworks internship started. I had one weekend to unpack, get situated, figure everything out, and go. I thought this would be a really tough adjustment - expecially considering that I started my first class last semester at 10 am, 11:30 am, or even 1 pm, depending on the day of the week, and would now have to start every day at about 8:30 am. With no time to readjust my sleep schedule, I thought I was doomed. Much to my surprise, though, the adjustment hasn't been too bad, although there are a few other differences between college life and work life.

1. You thought you're focused during school? Put away your phone and try again. Although completing college schoolwork seems productive, is it really? I don't know about you, but I've usually got Facebook open and my eyes on my phone every other second while I'm supposed to be doing homework or studying. No one's going to ban you from the office if they see you on your cell phone, but it is a different setting; in the business world, it is generally expected that you are not glued to your social media feeds while on the job. This is one thing that I've found a little hard: fighting that feeling that my phone should be right in front of me. However, I'm generally kept busy enough that the time flies, and I don't need my phone.

2. Your work isn't handed to you on an assignment sheet. As interns, we're generally guidedwith what to work on, but in no way is it anything like being handed an assignment sheet with all the instructions. Even more, the projects you do on the job generally don't rely on Google searches and library databases; rather, this work requires self-sufficiency and talking to real people as sources for information. Rather than asking yourself, "How would my teacher like this work to be completed," you have to use your own discretion to determine the best approach to the project from a business perspective.

3. You're not invisible in the back of the lecture hall. How many people have set next to you in that giant lecture hall that you didn't even speak to once? We're all guilty of it, but in the office it's not like that; in the office, you talk to the people around you, and you get to know them. After all, you're not just collegues for a semester, you're coworkers for as long as you both work here. It is important to put forth an effort to meet as many people as you can. Even though it is hard to keep track of everyone you meet all at once, it is nice to meet new people and to continue to get to know them.

4. I did say social in the last point. Yes, social! We can have friends here! Dwellworks is a really fun place to work because it is filled with amazing personalities; so this point, then, is really about something that didn't require readjustment. I was afraid that an internship in an office downtown would be professionally boring, but rather than professionally boring Dwellworks is enjoyably professional. Catch my drift? I haven't lost my social life, because I'm able to maintain some element of a social atmosphere right here at work.

Kaitlyn, Cleveland OH