Sleep, Social, or School: You Choose

Arguably the biggest struggle in college students is to find the right balance between the following three entities; sleep, social life, and school work. It’s important to maintain this balance, however, it might seem too ideal to believe that this balance can be accomplished.

Besides, it’s not like these three entities are the only things students have to worry about. They also need to focus on internship applications, work, exercise, financial situation, and healthy eating habits.

It may be too much pressure to force students to balance out their lives between sleep, school and friends, but individuals must make their priorities straight. Therefore we will talk about each concept and use logic and deliberation to justify the right way to balance out your college lifestyle.

In order to manage your time wisely it is best to create a schedule or a calendar to visually see your daily plans. Now you can map out your schedule and find gaps of free time that you would have never thought of being productive.

When it comes to schoolwork and studying, even a small 30-minute gap in your schedule can be useful. Personally, I like to make flash cards of my study material and quickly review them when I have a free moment. This can even be in short-duration instances like waiting in line for food, before class, or even walking to and from places. Short-duration flashcard studying is a great way to gain memorization.

Speaking of memorization, your sleeping habits play a pivotal role in retaining your lecture notes for the big exam. According to a study conducted by Pennsylvania Institute of Technology, sleep can facilitate memory retention and academic performance. 

http://www.pit.edu/blog/2013/08/sleeping-helps-college-students-pennsylvania/ 

You should develop a sleeping pattern to keep your body in normal homeostasis. If you are exhausted and you’re up late cramming for a midterm, it would be more useful to go to sleep and wake up earlier in the morning to study. There is no use to study when you are tired, as your mind will find it difficult to retain the information.

With that said, never make your bedroom a study room as well. Then you would be more tempted to go to sleep rather then study. Make sure your study spot is a completely different environment then a bedroom.

Everyone should experience a social life while in college. But what if your social life comes at the cost of sleep and schoolwork? Or even worse, what if sleep and a social life come at the cost of school and studying. This dilemma seems to be a problem for many college students who don’t know how to manage their time. Once they are out of their parent’s home, they feel free to do whatever they want while disregarding school. 

It is critical to not lose yourself to the social life at college. Plan accordingly when it comes to making plans with friends. Even though the weekends are meant to be fun, sometimes you have to crack down on your schoolwork and hit the books at the library. If you are able to go out two-three nights a week then you are in good shape. Make lunch and dinner social with friends and if you don’t have enough time for anything you can always say to your friends “if I had time to be social while at school, you know I would hang out with you”... Every college student should understand that excuse.

So go ahead and evaluate what is important to you in your college experience. Of course there are students who manage to succeed in school by doing the bear minimum, but that is a rarity.

Be Balanced, Be Persistent, Be Healthy, Be Outgoing.