Meet Brooke Murphy. Brooke is a junior Nursing student from Sherwood, AR. She is a member of the Academic Enrichment Program and is a Silas Hunt Scholar. Brooke says that the U of A was her first choice for college and that she has wanted to come here since she was a little girl. Some of Brooke’s favorite memories include watching Razorback games with her family and rooting for the hogs during the biggest rivalry game against LSU. Even though the house was divided on teams, she says that these games always bring the family closer
Your student is now entering into the college years. This is a great time to meet people from different backgrounds, build lifelong relationships, and get involved in plenty of great organizations. Unfortunately, students sometimes struggle with finding time for academics amidst all the excitement. Luckily, with just a few tips, your student will be able to find the balance between academics and their social life.
Prioritize: It’s so important to prioritize in college! A lot of times students get wrapped up in creating a social life and enjoying themselves that they forget that school should always come first. This is college and the main reason they are here is to get their degree. Remind your student to always make time for their classes and homework and not let their social life conflict with that.
Organize: Organization also helps in balancing social life and school. When a student has an organized list of all the tasks they have to do for their classes and all their assignment due dates, they’ll be more likely to fulfill these tasks and less likely to let the social events derail them. In contrast, if the student did not keep an organized record of all their tasks for class they could easily forget about them and go hang out with their friends instead. Encourage your student to stay organized by getting a weekly planner so that they’ll be able to write down everything they need to accomplish for class. Planners are available for free while supplies last at the Arkansas Union Info Desk.
Time Management: Time management is really important for college students because they probably don’t know how to utilize down time effectively. Time management and prioritization sort of go hand and hand. In order to effectively manage their time, your student should allocate the majority of their time to school and studying. This will help them stay on top of their classwork and help them to achieve the grades they want. The rest of their time can then be devoted to being with their friends and enjoying all the fun aspects of college. Once they get their planner, encourage your student to block off all class times. From there, encourage them to determine how much time studying they might need for each class each week. Then they can divide that time up between each day of the week and write it all down in their planners. For some students it is easier to say no to an event or hanging out with friends when they can physically see what they should be doing instead. It also serves as a great motivator so your student can reward themselves with free time with friends after they attend class and study for the day.
Be Proactive: I can personally say that being proactive has really helped me keep balance between my school and social life. Whenever your student is assigned homework, encourage them to get started on it right then! This will help your student get the work done early and allow them to do what they want to afterwards. Also, this helps the student achieve a better score on the assignment because the material will be fresh in their mind. This will eliminate stress from your student because they won’t feel pressured or rushed by time constraints.
Say No: A lot of students really struggle with the word “no”. I personally struggled with this as well. College is such a fun and exciting time that students want to get involved in every organization and have leadership roles in these organizations and volunteer and go to social functions and events, however this is not always an option. Students have to learn to say no to being involved in everything and although this will be hard at first, they will really be happy later on once they receive the grades they want and continue to succeed in their academics.
Balancing academics and a social life can be difficult, but it’s not impossible. There are plenty of different ways for your student to balance their school and social life. These are just the ones that I’ve found particularly helpful, but I recommend you and your student come up with ideas and tips that are best suited for them. Once they apply those ideas to their everyday lives I can guarantee you that they’ll be on track for plenty of academic successes and a lot of fun as well!