Meet Jasmine Edwards | Higher Education Professional and Natural Hair & Lifestyle Content Creator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jasmine Edwards and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jasmine, how has your perspective on work-life balance evolved over time?
Before starting my YouTube channel, my schedule was pretty simple. I started my day with my morning routine and breakfast; went to work for 8-9 hours a day; came home for dinner; and then I would spend the rest of the evening on social media until it was time for bed. My weekends were meant for relaxing from the busyness of the week or hanging with friends and family.

I decided to start my channel in May of 2020 since I was working form home due to the start of the pandemic. Because my schedule was inconsistent at work and we were in lockdown, I had a lot of time to create content for my channel and my other social media platforms. Over the summer, I was able to take the time to make many videos because work was very light and I had the time to create and edit multiple videos. I was able to get out two videos a week plus maintain my presence on Instagram.

However at the end of summer, work began to get very busy and I had to take a month off from Instagram and YouTube. It wasn’t an ideal situation because in order to grow on both those platforms, you have to have a consistent presence on them. During the month of August, I didn’t have any time to film any videos or take any pictures but I had so many ideas that I wanted to bring to life.

Once my workload slow down a bit, I was able to get back to filming videos for my channel, however the process of filming and editing took so much time. I realized that I would have to do a lot of my content creating over the weekend. That meant that I wasn’t going to be able to see my family and friends as often as I would like over the weekend. I was able to find random weekends to go home and see my family, but most of the time was spent creating videos. I was still trying to edit and upload two videos a week and it was taking a toll on me. I realized that something would have to give, but I did not want to give up my content creation and I needed my job.

After a lot of thought, I decided to upload one video a week on YouTube. I continued uploading content to Instagram every day on Instagram because I really wanted to grow my presence there. For a while that worked, but then there were random weeks where I would fall off of my schedule because work got busy or I was too tired. I started feeling overwhelmed because I wasn’t able to do the things that I normally would do outside of a pandemic, and I didn’t like the direction my channel and page was going.

After Thanksgiving, I decided to do Vlogmas in December and try to upload a video every day. I thought this would work because I had started to bulk film my videos earlier in the month. However, work became busy again and I ended up only completing about eighteen days of Vlogmas.

I took the rest of December to really figure out how to best balance my life. I needed to find a way to make the most use of my time outside of work. I decided to stick with one video a week on YouTube and upload 3 to 4 times a week on Instagram. I started using Trello to help me stay organized with my content creating and I wrote down everything that I needed to do in my planner. I also started bulk filming my content for YouTube and Instagram. This helped me so much because I am able to take my time with editing my photos and videos and set specific times for them to be uploaded.

One thing I realized is that my work life balance will continue to change over time no matter what I decide to do. Just like a scale, sometimes something will cause it to tip/lean to one side. It’s important to be flexible finding ways to regain a balance that works for you. The most important thing is figuring out what are my priorities and how to make sure that I create time to complete them while still leaving room for spontaneity. The summertime is coming up so I know my schedule will change a little bit but now that I know the strategies to help me remain on top of my work, I can avoid some of those feelings of being overwhelmed. Looking back, it is so amazing the process I went through to create a sustainable work life balance and I look forward to seeing it adjust throughout the rest of the year.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I have been working in higher education for about five years. I am the coordinator for residential learning initiatives at a university in Georgia. I work within university housing and I absolutely love it! I have been in this position for about a year and it has been an unique experience. I started this role at the beginning of the pandemic, so my transition wasn’t the easiest but I made it through. The role that I’m in had been vacant for about two years, so I had to navigate learning this role from scratch. I’m very lucky that I had a supervisor to help me navigate this new role and support me in the ideas that I had for this position. One of the greatest things about working as a coordinator is that I have the opportunity to create initiatives that benefit our students living on campus academically and personally.

I started off as an assistant hall director in 2019 and once I completed my masters degree I knew I wanted something different than what I’ve done before. I love working with students but I was looking for more of a challenge that would prepare me for my future goals. I applied to many different positions in higher education and I was offered some jobs, but they didn’t feel right for me. When this coordinator position opened I knew I had to apply because it was exactly what I was looking for in a career. I’m so blessed that I was awarded this opportunity o be the coordinator and I’m grateful for the support that I had during the interview process. My parents, my sister, my best friend, and other colleagues served as a great support system as I went through multiple rounds of interviewing.

One thing that I’ve learned in this position is that it’s important to rely on your support system. I have a lot of ideas that I want to implement in this role, but I can’t do it alone. I’m grateful for my graduate assistants, student leaders, and my supervisor and their ability to help me bring my ideas to life. I also learned that it’s okay to start with the foundations before jumping into bigger goals. When I first started this role I had a variety of ideas, but I had to remind myself that I don’t have to accomplish all these ideas at one time. This is something that I’ve also learned in my content creating. I realized that I’m always going to have lots of ideas and it’s important to figure out which ones can help me accomplish my goals while also helping people. Both my professional career and my brand are focused on helping others. I want other people to look at me and be able to see that anything is possible. I never thought I would be where I am today because I limited myself and my options. But once I took a leap of faith, I realized just how much I am capable of doing. I thank God for the position that I’m in right now. I have the opportunity to help college students be successful academically, professionally, and personally. I also have the opportunity to share my knowledge and story about natural hair and life in general. Though higher education and natural hair aren’t in the same category, I have the opportunity to use my personality to inspire others.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My mom, dad and sister have been an amazing support system throughout my journey. They constantly encourage, give me great ideas and offer constructive feedback when needed. My sister has been amazing at helping me find trends and recreating them to fit my style. I usually call my sister when creating my thumbnails for my videos. Its great having someone that you trust give you feedback so that you can produce your best work.

My friends have also been wonderful at supporting me. Many of them have taking the time out to repost my content on Instagram, as well as comments on my YouTube videos. My friends have encouraged their friends and their social media followers to subscribe to my channel and follow me on Instagram. I appreciate their efforts at promoting my page. Between my parents, my sister, And my friends, I have a community of people that support me in all my endeavors. Through my hard work and their support I was able to grow my YouTube channel to over 100 subscribers and increase my followers on Instagram.

Instagram: @itsonlyjasnicole

Linkedin: Jasmine Edwards, M.Ed

Twitter: @ItsJasNicole

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jasmine.edwards.98

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/JasNicole