How to Balance Personal Life and Study in College
It gets even more difficult for working students who are trying to cope with coursework, assignments and still want to spend a few hours partaking in a recreational activity. One day you swear to start waking up early at exactly 4.3.a.m only to end up snoozing alarm bell every time in rings. Hence, waking up early is a promise you can no longer keep.
Then a decision that from today henceforth you will be spending two hours in the library going through classroom notes becomes your next bet. However, that too fails to take off. It is impossible sitting by the library window watching your friends play in the distant field. Soon, you are speeding past the library door heading for the baseball pitch. ‘After all,’ you persuade yourself, ‘work without play makes jack a dull boy.’
The truth is without a proper plan on how to spend your time at school, things will be moving from a frying pan into the sun. Your grades will begin to suffer and personal life will take a plunge. Even if you can find a college homework help when assignments begin to tighten a noose around your neck, it is not enough to get things moving the right way. This post helps put some of these challenges to rest by walking you through tips on how to balance personal life and studies in college.
Making the most of college life: Striking an equilibrium between studies and personal life
Now, if you’ve tried your best to enjoy life at school without forgoing studies or vice versa, this post if for you. Take a look at the following tips on how to stay on course with everything:
Learn how to make a chance when it is the best thing to do
Let’s face it. Life at school can be overwhelming and if you are the kind of a student who sticks to routines, truth is you will suffer. Thus, it is sometimes advisable to weigh into your habits and how you spend your time to make a change. If you realize a lot of time goes into non-academic activities such as attending student club meetings, a change would be as good as it is necessary.
If say, you are a leader in any of the organizations and you realize it eats into your study time, it is that moment you dropped one or two roles. Your main purpose of being in school is to study and if you don’t have enough time for it, poor grades are the most likely outcome at the end of a school term.
Seek guidance from experienced students, teachers and counselor
There will be days when life in college feels like you are living in a pressure cooker. You cannot think creatively or even focus on the most important activities of the day. It could be because the weekend has just ended and you stayed out late with friends at a party or spend some sweet time with a girl you are dating. It gets worse when there is an assignment due Monday in a few hours. Situations like these, you would agree, often put a student’s head into a spin. Even worse, stress becomes the elephant in the house. And, so you ask, how do I cope with all these challenges?
Well, when bad comes to worse or push comes to shove, you are dealing with a bigger problem than what you are used to. It is, therefore, that time you sought help from the right people. If your situation has everything to do with social life, then student counselors are your best bet on handling stress. In cases where you are always late with assignments and focus on studies starts fading, take a bold step, talk to your teacher and solve the problem before it pilfers out of control.
Learn how to manage time effectively
Inability to balance personal life and studies often boils down to poor time management. Here, you’ve got to ask yourself important questions. For example, how do you manage your time when there is no more lesson to attend? Do you choose to do assignments or join friends at a football pitch? At school, time always revolves around socializing, eating, sleeping and studies.
And, given that some students find it hard to say no to a party invitation, that’s when problems start. Are you going to attend everything or do assignment first? Well, situations like these call for assertiveness and the need to have your priorities properly set. With this taken care of, good time management translates to productivity.
Evaluate your studies habits
You may have been working hard and scoring highly in academics, but you cannot explain occasional downtime in your focus. Thus, you begin to wonder. What could be the problem? What is stressing you up? The catch here is that some study habits, even though translate to better grades, can be overwhelming.
It is a case whereby a student spends so many hours studying, revising notes and getting ready for assessment tests that he or she hardly finds time for socializing. Even worse, you ignore burnout and go ahead to cram notes because with only a few hours remaining to do a test, you cannot risk going out to play. Often, poor study habits lead to situations like these. It means, if your study time puts pressure on you, it is that time a student re-evaluate things. It is time to look into your school life routine, come up with a workable study routine and a formula that helps one balance school and personal life.
Stay realistic in everything you do
There are students who set their academic ambitions so high that they have to bury the heads into books day in and day out. If you thought becoming a bookworm is the best way to getting better grades, then you probably got advised by the wrong person. While having an ambition is commendable and setting goals, important-you are only one person trying to juggle between competing interests.
Humans are social beings and at the same time trying to achieve their goals. Thus, it is imperative that a student sets realistic goals and come up with a formula for achieving them. Know your burnout point and when to take a rest before resuming on a quest for the best grades.
Get enough sleep, every day
Sleeping is an important aspect of daily life at school. While you may want to go out and unwind at a friend’s party on a Saturday, don’t forgo your sleep hours. Physical breakdown is the worst thing you don’t want to experience when classes resume. With sufficient amount of sleep come many things.
Whether you 7 or 8 hours a night in bed, the most important thing is that it helps relax your brain and a body after a day of heightened academic and social activities. Nothing feels good like getting enough sleep and ready to face another day, strong physically and fresh mentally.
Get your body some move
Even with a tight academic calendar, you’ve got to stay fit as a student. Academic experts will tell that students who exercise are more organized and focused than those who do not. Moreover, if you can spend about two to three hours every day jogging, chances are always high that you mind becomes more focused, strong and fresh. Now, you can imagine the level of preparedness for studies and social life among students who exercise. It is very high. If you can find time to exercise, at least every day, there is no doubt your personal and academic life are in tango.
Your Choices, Your Consequences
While the most important decision a student can make is to focus on studies, there are other choices which can bring about dire consequences. In this regard, think about the type of company you keep at school? Is it going to translate into good grades or drag you into peer pressure and unprecedented crimes at school? Are you too much involved in sports than academics and what can you do about to strike a balance?
With the above questions at the back of your mind, the best advice for every student out there is to know when to make a choice. It is for the good of your life at school and studies or you make choices to please others or fit into the ways?
Life at school is exciting yet it can be overwhelming and intimidating. From dealing with excess freedom in college, managing time, making new friends to studies, it takes the right advice to get things moving in the right direction. And with this post, you should able to strike a balance between studies and personal life.
