Let me give you the long and short of it: Move from NC to GA to go to grad school. I moved in August and since then it's been nonstop running around headless. I work for Fedex so I'm clocking in at 4:00am to go to work. My commute is 30 minutes to work and then another 30 minutes to school because Atlanta traffic and swallow a dirty needle for all I care and then class from 9:30am until I get back at home at around 3:45pm, then go back to work at 8:30pm. So I get to nap sometimes. Not sleep but nap.
Grad school for theology is a monster. It's a writing and reading intensive discipline so my skill set and its use are very different. I don't get much time for myself (my only day off is Saturday). Tuesdays and Thursdays I'm able to lift and have some time to breathe outside of work. I picked up gymnastics at school because they allow grad students to do that with their club team. It's something I've also always wanted to do since first grade. My first semester is almost done so this is what insight I have on bodybuilding, lifting in general, and grad school life.
I. If grad school isn't your top priority then reconsider being there. You're probably taking out five figures of loans for however long to go into a field. You can always get a cheap gym membership somewhere else, hell you can do bodyweight workouts if your time is severely crunched, but you're going to be paying interest on those loans for years and that's putting it mildly. Some days when I can lift I can't because I have readings and assignments to do. It's what comes with being in school. In some ways it's like undergraduate work and in some ways it's this new world that my old professors warned me about and I'm starting to find out that I didn't listen.
II. Your recovery is going to take a hit. This is where injuries happen. I haven't torn anything and I don't intend to break that streak. I sit in a car for an hour or two hours to go to work and to school and then I sit in a chair for the vast majority of my day. Lucky for me gymnastics is all about mobility and flexibility so I get to stretch and my god my hips are tighter than (insert middle school joke here). Remind yourself to eat more than you thought you needed to because stress fucks your metabolism up something fierce. Cram your shakers full of protein and stuff them in your backpack or leave them in your car (if it's a cold day then it's fine if it's hot then no we all know the horrors). Grad school is a stressful exercise and it will mess with your recovery and your metabolism so be prepared to ride the wave, so to speak.
III. If you treat your body like an asshole then sooner or later it's going to tell you how it feels. I push 3000-5000 lb. containers into planes at shit times in shit weather. My fingers have taken a beating and my elbows are already shit from benching improperly for years. I want to exclusively lift heavy but I can't give time to powerlifting for now so I have to focus almost exclusively on bodybuilding. Which okay fine there's nothing wrong with that but I can't go five times a week anymore. I don't have the time for it. I'm trying to fix it but if you keep your diet up and maintain your calories then you should be fine. Whenever you can lift, love every second of it because it's fleeting time for yourself at best. Especially because right now we're staring down the barrels of final exams (November is this coming week). You can make time for lifting before grades start to suffer and like I said earlier, grad school is meant to be a top priority.
IV. I've seen a lot of yoga groups and running groups and hiking groups. The grad school lifting scene is sparse at best and at worst nonexistent. Wherever you can find camaraderie and community, enter it and don't let go. Grad school (master's work) is an ascetic lifestyle and for the brave souls that go on to PhD work then it becomes a monastic call. Wherever you can make friends in the gym do so. I'm not here to write a treatise on gym etiquette but grad school is lonely. The gym for me is a social hour whenever I get the chance.
V. You will get smaller. Something is going to give and you will either stop going to the gym consistently or your diet will take a hit to the point where you're only eating once a day (me and I'm making a change to stop that shit). I've lost some mass and I knew that would happen from the get-go. Don't be surprised if upon recollection you see some veins disappearing or you maybe put on some weight because you're grabbing some fast food in between class or between class and work or whatever.
These are just my immediate thoughts and advice. Govern yourselves accordingly.
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