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Is working full time and completing a research assistantship job out of the question?

I'm going to be working at a public defender job full time and recently got accepted for a "prestigious" RA job with one of the top professors at my school. I really want to do both but I also want to have a life and not kill myself over the summer. Is this possible?

Is this like a full-time internship that you're doing during the semester? Do you have any schoolwork? Or will it just be RA and PD? If the latter, then I think it's feasible to do both. How many hours is your RA demanding you think (it may depend on the prof)? If it's 10 hours or less per week, I think you can do it. And if your prof is fine with you doing everything online and digitally without facetime, then even better. At my school, RAs typically were 10 hours or less a week. And I still had time for school work and internships. However, some of my friends had professors who were more demanding.

Been there done that. It'll be a huge pain in the ass and you'll probably be wrapping up your RA stuff into September (and ruining your Labor Day weekend).

How many weeks is your internship and how many hours is your RA?

I worked full time and was an RA during my 2L summer. It was doable, but it sucked.

Nights and weekends off is the best part of a summer job. RAing totally ruins it.

You will want to figure out how many hours / week the RA position is. My 1L summer, I worked a typical 40hr/week summer internship and a 20hr/week RA position. It was doable, but it was tough -- and I don't feel that it helped me all that much during 2L OCI (though helpful for clerkship apps). On top of the writing competition, bidding for 2L OCI, 20 hrs per week is nearly all your free time. I was often doing work after getting home from my day job, and frequently doing on weekends. After making plans a couple weekends in a row, I was getting up at 5-6am to do an hour of research before work, and doing a couple hours upon getting home. And that still left me with a few hours to complete over the weekend.

Don't underestimate 60 hours a week. But if you're only doing 10 hours or less a week, more easily doable. Also -- while it will ruin a summer that is usually pretty relaxing for most rising 2Ls, it may be worth it to you in the long-term (depending on whether you want to clerk, what school you attend, career goals, etc.)

He mentioned during the interview it would be 10-15 hours. I want to be a public defender that my main goal I dont really have any interest in clerking or really bidding hard at OCI but I think it would be interested in doing the research my professor is talking about. I'm really quite torn, but I feel like it makes sense to just do the PD and not worry too much about over extending myself.