As a college student, doing internships is expected of you and they can be very valuable. Most students do their internships during the summer but being as crazy as I am, I decided to do an internship during the fall semester, which also happened to be one of the hardest of my academic career to date. It wasn't ideal but it's doable and if you do it right, you'll learn an unbelievable amount from it.
There's two main qualities you need in order to do well in this situation: work ethic and time management.
There's two main qualities you need in order to do well in this situation: work ethic and time management.
If you don't have work ethic, you better develop it or get used to being average at best. Not just average in school and the internship but average with everything else you do over the course of your lifetime. I got lucky and grew up with the hardest working people I know as my parents, both having multiple jobs at a time since they were only 11 years old. I had that work ethic engrained into me since I was a kid (thanks ma and dad) and I'm still nowhere near their level. If you aren't as lucky as me, you can still develop it. Like with anything else in life, practice makes perfect (or progress at least).
Most importantly, stop looking for shortcuts and putting in minimal effort. You'll learn absolutely nothing that way and are essentially wasting your time and the time of your boss and mentors so suck it up and get it done. Imagine how much better of an outcome you can get if you put in a little more effort even with the little things. After all, when you enrolled in college and signed up for this internship program, you committed your time and energy to something in order to better yourself. Learn how to work harder on whatever task you've set out to do. You get out what you put in.
Time management is what makes your hard work more efficient. Working hard is a necessity but working smart can make your life just a little less stressful.
You need to set your priorities. In this case, your priorities are class work and internship duties. Friends and a social life are great and all but if you're not getting your school and work responsibilities taken care of, hanging out with friends isn't worth it. You've committed to school and this internship to gain knowledge and experience, use your time and energy and your professors/mentors' time and energy wisely.
Working hard is a necessity but working smart can make your life just a little less stressful.
That being said, taking some time to destress every once in a while so you don’t go absolutely insane and burnout. In order to make time for this while still getting your school and internship duties done, you have to plan ahead. The more you plan and schedule, the more you'll get done well and done on time and then maybe have time for friends or hobbies every so often. Spend Sunday looking ahead and scheduling what you need to get done for the week then check that schedule every morning and adjust accordingly.
Lastly, be realistic. You can't fit everything you want to do into your schedule, you think you can but you can't. Trust me on this one. Even with cutting your sleep down to 4 hours a night and drinking endless amounts of coffee you won't do everything. Hence the significance of setting priorities. Some nights you think that studying until midnight is enough time and you don't need to schedule another couple hours for studying but chances are you're wrong. Know what’s essential for your success and budget extra time in your schedule for things like this. So no, you won't be able to go to every basketball game or party. Instead you'll be taking care of a few things for your boss or looking over Chemistry notecards for the millionth time. That's okay, it's all worth it in the end.
Work hard, plan ahead, be committed.