This summer, Maryland Smith is catching up with MBA students working as interns at top companies throughout the country. Watch the students talk about how their internship experiences are helping them build their skills and make professional connections in The Smith Report, a short podcast produced by the Office of Marketing Communications.

In this edition, first-year MBA Maria Herold lets us in on what it's like to work as an MBA Intern at M&T Bank.

Watch here: https://youtu.be/jqgQYPQjuz8

If I had been told at the beginning of 2020 that the word “unprecedented” would become the most overused word in the English language, I would have rolled my eyes and kept moving. Now, halfway through the year, the hard pause caused by COVID-19 has made “unprecedented” feel like an understatement. We are living through a global event that will change the way people conduct business forever. The pandemic will create case studies taught by the MBA programs for years to come.

The emergence of COVID-19 has changed much of life as we know it. Gone are the days of handshakes and high-fives, social gatherings, parties and live events and countless other things that we took for granted. In times of social distancing, MBA students have had to adapt to new ways to keep in touch with each other. Students have taken advantage of the phone and internet to find creative ways to maintain a sense of community.

With campuses shifting to online-only classes to curb the spread of the coronavirus, and companies asking employees to work from home, lots of people are adjusting to a new work situation. For some people, the work-remote setup is ideal; for others, far from it.

As an MBA student, I can relate. With all my trusted routines out the window, I spent the first few days of the new online-learning era simply adjusting.

Here’s how I learned to maintain a high level of productivity, in an era of online learning.

Designate a workspace(s)