I officially started my photography business during my first semester of college. I had spent the entire past year deciding to chase my dream of shooting weddings, and had been assisting wedding photographers all year long while trying to start my business in a brand new city I had just moved to. Running my business in college (while pursuing a degree in marketing) has been one of the most challenging, yet rewarding things I’ve done.

Today I’m sharing 12 things (in my experience) about what it’s really like running a business in college:

You have to be organized. There’s no way you could run your business well and still have good grades if you aren’t organized. Having systems, workflows, checklists, reminders, etc. in place is NECESSARY. If you don’t have organization, you easily miss due dates for assignments, can’t plan to not take on meetings and shoots before big exams, or you end up overworking yourself week after week.

You have to know how to manage your time. I know that when it’s the summer, I can 100% focus on my business. When it’s finals week, I am 100% focusing on studying. It can be really hard, because I ALWAYS want to work on my business but don’t have a huge desire to study all the time… so staying focused on studying for exams is super hard. But I always remind myself that there are short seasons (literally a week or two, haha) for both things and that it’s okay if all I can do in my business that week is answer emails and no projects get done… I’ll have more time to do it once exams are over! Not only do you have to manage your time well for this reason, you have to manage it well because if you don’t, you won’t have any free time and will spend so much time working.

You take advantage of every spare minute you have. I use the 10-15 spare minutes in-between classes to answer emails, plan out my Instagram posts, engage on my Instagram, etc. I use every spare minute I can to get things done while I am in “work” mode. This allows me to get way more done so I can have real relaxing time later in the day!

You realize you need help… really quickly. Here in the midwest, wedding season (through October) overlaps with the first 2 months of the fall semester. I found out pretty quickly that I could NOT shoot weddings almost every weekend and keep up with all the editing. I have outsourced the majority of my photo editing (for my client’s full galleries) since the beginning and it’s been one of the biggest blessings in my business. Since then, I have also brought on people to help me with Facebook posting, Pinterest, YouTube videos, and more. You can’t do it alone. Being able to let go of control and let others help me has saved me my SANITY that is not worth any amount of money! I’m so grateful I realized that before I burned myself out at the beginning and became bitter towards my business.

It’s not always as glamorous as it sounds. Yes, running a business in college is AMAZING. But essentially, you are doing two things full time at once. The amount of hours I pour into my business is full time, and while the semester is going, I am a full time student with a full course load. It’s A LOT. I tracked my hours for a few weeks and found out I pour around 50 hours JUST into my business every week… and then another 20+ into my classes (depending on the week). Yeah, it’s a lil crazy! But…

You have the peace of knowing you have a job as soon as you graduate. At least, if you’ve built your business up like I have to be run full time, you don’t even have to worry about finding a job or getting interviews… you just get to graduate and already have one, which is an AMAZING perk of running a business in college!

Your schedule constantly changes. Every 3-4 months, my schedule and routine changes. Some semesters, I have Friday’s or Monday’s off (or some other odd day of the week) from classes and get to focus on whatever I want that day. Some semesters, I have 8am classes Monday through Friday. I have night classes most semesters and the day of the week those are on changes every semester. During the summer, I have no classes at all and have to manage keeping myself on schedule. It’s challenging, to say the least! I’m not a huge routine person (thank goodness, otherwise it’d be way harder!!) but it does make you feel like your schedule is crazier when it’s always different. The evenings I can schedule shoots and meetings changes every few months!

You always have the pull to work on your business because it’s what lights your soul on fire. If you’re entrepreneurial, you UNDERSTAND this. You are constantly thinking about your business and new ideas, how to make things better, and what you want to do next. Running a business in college is no different. It is really hard to not dedicate all your time to it and still focus on keeping up with classes too. It’s because you love it SO MUCH.

Boundaries are really hard to keep. Because your schedule is always changing, and sometimes you have exams you have to stay up late studying for, boundaries in your time and business are SO hard to keep. One thing I’m really looking forward to when I graduate this spring is being able to have a STOP time every day to stop working. With night classes, early morning exams, and many other things, it’s basically impossible to stop working at a certain time EVERY DAY. Because every day is so different!

Email scheduling is your bestttttt friend. Well, I can’t say this for everyone, but at least for me, it is! If I know I have to wake up at 8am for classes the next day and won’t have time to answer emails until later that evening, I can work on emails for 15 minutes the night before and schedule them all to send out the next morning… and no one knows the difference! I still keep this boundary from my clients’ point of views, because they’re never receiving emails from me past 6pm… even if some weeks, that’s the only time I HAVE the time to respond to emails. My favorite app for Gmail to use is Streak!

You have different friend groups that vary greatly. I know this is true of anyone, but I think it’s especially true when you are essentially active in many different worlds!! I have friends who are in college with me and know the pains of staying up late studying for exams, and I have friends who also run their own businesses and can talk business with you all day long. There’s not a lot of overlap because there aren’t a lot of people in college who are also entrepreneurial while they’re IN college! Besides that, I have also had a friend group from church that’s separate from people who go to my college… which really makes for three friend groups, haha! It’s definitely different but it’s also where you learn that no friend can fulfill EVERY desire in your heart for a friendship, and that it’s not even healthy to put that on anyone! You talk business to your business friends and relate to them on the emotional levels of running a business, but then you also have friends who are also in college and can relate on how hard that last exam was.

You are so grateful to already have your dream job. If you’re like me and ended up running a business in college and fell IN LOVE with it, it fills you with so much gratitude to know that you’ve found something that you literally feel EXCITED to work on. I’ve been running my business for four YEARS and still wake up feeling super excited to work on my business. Some people spend years and years of their lives searching for a job that lights them up like that, so you feel really thankful to have already found it.