By Danielle Emeka

Talking about creating balance in one’s life is a common topic. Work, classes, family, friends, sleep. How do you delegate enough time to each without creating tension? You don’t.

As I juggle the many things that take up my time these days — my time with FIR the student run ad agency at PSU where I create ad campaigns for clients my job that pays the bills, my full class schedule and  a little sleep! — instability has become a close companion. It hangs out with me as I stay up late finishing homework and grab coffee before an 8:00 am meeting the next morning. I’ve come to know it well, and I want to embrace it even more. This is the key time for me to be busy and have a lot on my plate. even though I’m stretched a little thin, I know I’m working towards my desired career. I know that what I have to do every day brings me one day closer to that, and I couldn’t be happier.

I believe college isn’t the place to strive for the ideal structured experience. In fact I think it’s the best time to practice instability. Once you graduate, the real world hits and you’re in a  job, the work structure, with its expectations for results, takes over. I think it’s better to explore one’s field and work while you still have a support system in school, rather than experiencing that for the first time in the work world. Internship programs at PSU like FIR allow me to attain real work experience in advertising that will make me feel more confident when I take my first agency job.

So if you’re just going through the motions of work and classes collecting credits, maybe it’s time to search for a little bit of instability for a change. Practice embracing a little bit of the unpredictable. You never know where it’ll take you.