Something's Gotta Give

Imagine this: it's about 5pm, you're just heading to grab a quick dinner before your night class, than you have a club sport practice, than Bible study, then a late night meeting for a club, then a paper to write, than a test to do some last minute cramming for.  This might not be the average student's everyday schedule, but most people will have nights where they feel like they're never going to be able to sleep again a couple of days a semester.  Or, if you managed to, as many students do, sign up for every activity that you've ever been interested in during the Student Involvement fair the first week of school, you might have nights like this several days a week.  (While reading this remember, sleep=amazing thing that keeps everyone healthy and happy.)

In general, if you have several nights or days a week that you absolutely dread, there is a really good chance that you've overcommitted yourself.  Most experts (i.e. professors or students) suggest that students, especially first-years, should become involved with ONE extra-curricular activity during their first semester that they feel like they could potentially stick with for four years. (Like under-graduate schools, graduate schools do like to see that students have managed to stay committed to an extra-curricular for all four years, which is a common reason for students to overcommit themselves.)  

So what do you do if you've already over-committed yourself?  One great option is to take advantage of the Trinity library.  It's probably the absolute best place on campus to guarantee that you will get work done.  There are a bunch of quiet corners, a good coffee place (which takes meal plan!) and, lets face it, if you're going to walk all the way to the library, you don't want to leave there before you get your work done.  Going to the library can help you ensure that you get all of your work out of the way before you start your nightly slog through all of your extra-curricular activities.

However, even with the help of the library, it can be possible to be too over-committed to function.  In these times, as the saying goes, something's gotta give.  If you aren't getting enough sleep, are really stressed out about not being able to give enough time to your commitments, or are worried about your schoolwork you should probably cut out an activity and maybe try to pick it up again when you have the time.  Quitting something is always tough but people at Trinity are usually very understanding and will probably better appreciate you being honest about not having enough time than you just not showing up for things all the time.  

Welcome to the World of No Time

Before we came to college, most of us heard something like this: "In college there are three parts of life- academia, social, and sleep.  You can do two of the three successfully."  Most parents use some variation of this quote to try and convince their son/daughter about how academics are more important than having a social life.  

However, this idea seems to be missing a lot about college life.  What about athletics (varsity, intramural, or club), Greek life, the music scene, or any of the million of clubs and extra-curricular activities that each campus offers?  The simple fact is that all college campus' contain hundreds of things that can easily fill up a student's time and, usually, there are enough activities that most kids can double-book all of their time within a few weeks of walking on campus.  

Trinity University is no exception to this rule and shows great pride in how many of its student participate in extra-curricular activities.  Along with the rigorous schedules that Trinity also encourages, life can get overwhelming incredibly quickly and then a lot of students, including myself, find themselves being forced into making choices between doing classwork for classes that they have to take and going to meetings for activities that they really care about.  So what should they do?  This blog is going to give examples of how my friends and I manage to get through school while still staying active in the Trinity community.  

The picture above is a classic example of how my hall tries to stay social while still getting work done.  Unfortunately trying to study and play soccer at the same time rarely works, but it does give us an excellent excuse for a study break, which is the first way to stay social during harder times in school.

"Study break"- Opportunities to throw all of the books on the floor, leave your room or the library, and spend time de-frying your brain.  Good study breaks can involve playing games, getting off-campus for awhile, and almost always involve food and large groups of over-stressed students.  When taken at the correct intervals, study breaks are a great way to get refreshed to go back and keep studying, especially if they involve making plans for after whatever all of you are studying for (like a test) is over!