On your mark, get set, You made it! That is exactly what it feels like when you hit winter break. It’s as if time has been fast-forward, and here you are turning in rewrites, dusting your hands of 12 page papers, and twenty-minute conferences. In actuality you have been through 14 weeks of extensive studying, having learned so much more than when you entered the program. You have flexed and built up your discipline to be able to balance your life a little better. When the word balance is thrown around, often I think of this guru with a planner with tabs and several different highlighted events.

Grad’s hard at work getting final projects in!

Well that’s not real…well not completely. Balance isn’t keeping each and every piece of your life perfectly weighted. Think of balance in the terms of yoga. To achieve the warrior pose or the crane even, you must shift your weight back and forth so you don’t fall.

That is balance. Making compromises that shift your workload around. Take it from a second year Grad, you get better at it, because it just gets more challenging. The feeling you get when you rise up (yes that is a Hamilton nod) is awesome, and the benefits will show in your craft and in your next semester.

Some of my amazing cohort

Columbia’s Fiction program provides for you the tools you will need to get the work done. Though it is still up to you. If you come in and put in the work you will learn a lot. The truth being that even if you get accepted into the program you still need to make the best out of whatever you are doing here. If a class doesn’t turn out the way you thought it would go, find some merits to draw out of it. If you don’t get along with a member of your cohort find ways to coexist with them during class. Nothing is perfect, but the way you use the supplies you are giving is how you get succeed. As a person who holds a few jobs, does freelance work, and attends Columbia, I can tell you it’s possible to keep creating even under the most stressful of circumstances. If you need some tips on stress management, I’ve written a few blogs (to which my editor encouraged me to take a break from writing…what can I say I really enjoy self care!) on ways you can unwind.

The professors are also understanding and aware of your workload. Often times they will move assignments, or offer you the ability to present projects early, this gives you the opportunity to arrange your schedule. Graduate school can be a wave and if you miss the break you can get taken by the undercurrent (I’m pretty sure that’s how waves work). Stay above the water. By doing the work and communicating with the faculty, before you know you’ll have gotten that MFA. We exist in the now, then the now, and now. Always take advantage of today and you’ll be at the finish line before you know it.

On your mark, get set…