Wrapping Up The Semester

As my last blog post focused on what I planned to do over Thanksgiving break, I figured it would be repetitive—and honestly a little boring—to recap the holiday again this week. After staring at a blank screen longer than I’d like to admit, I realized that instead of forcing a Thanksgiving-related topic, it made more sense to talk about where I am right now with school.

At this point in the semester, I’ve made it through the biggest hurdles in my classes: the major semester-long projects. Most of you already know about my client project for this course, since we all tackled one. But because I’m a senior, I’m also juggling Capstone and PR Practicum at the same time. For anyone who isn’t familiar with Practicum, it’s essentially an extension of what we did in class this semester. We work with real clients, manage real deadlines, and get real-world experience in public relations. It’s rewarding, but it definitely adds to the workload.

On top of that, I’ve also been completing a semester project for my Advanced Business Analytics class. That one pushed me in a different direction, requiring a lot of data interpretation, critical thinking and problem-solving. Each project has had its own expectations and challenges, and at times it felt like all three were competing for the exact same hours in the week.

The good news is that I’ve finally reached the point where everything is either wrapped up or close to it. That feeling—closing out big projects and seeing the finish line—has made the stress worth it. There’s something satisfying about knowing the heaviest academic lifts of the semester are behind me.

Now that these major assignments are out of the way, I’m able to shift into a steadier pace for the rest of the term. Even better, the spring semester should be lighter as I finish up only a few remaining courses to complete my credit requirements. As I move toward graduation, I’m grateful for opportunities that pushed me, challenged me and helped me grow—but I’ll admit, it’s nice to finally breathe a little.