Switching jobs during grad school?

Heading to graduate school in a few weeks (arch/planning/policy focus), and managed to snag a role in real estate services a few months ago where I can work a bit while in school. End goal is to get into development as I really enjoy the mix of city-building, design, and business.


Don’t wanna doxx myself, but the firm revolves around real estate services, not dev/acq/lending. While I enjoy the flexibility and WLB especially given that I’m still in school, I am strongly considering leaving to work somewhere more in line with my goals. I was slated to work on local market research, which I thought could be beneficial given my goals as it would teach me a bit about investment decision-making, site selection, and all that. Problem is, I was initially staffed on more menial database/data entry and general admin stuff, and I'm still doing this after a few months. I feel like I am not learning anything useful doing a glorified data entry job now, plus pay is quite bad (sub-40K if I work full-time, which I won't because of grad school).


While I was told I would be switching towards more real estate-focused stuff quickly, it doesn’t seem to pan out as I get more and more involved in the data stuff, and I feel like I’m not using my full potential for this and might be losing out on more beneficial experience somewhere else.


I know NA markets are a lot slower these days, and my local market is no exception. Still, I’m debating whether it would be worth jumping ship to something else (maybe a planning firm or municipal role) while I’m still early in my career despite only being there for a few months? Would that burn bridges and affect me later on? Should I just stay the course and I hope I get staffed on more ''useful'' work later on?

 

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