Post freshman year of college, I learned a lot about the person I want and need to be in the college environment and I think this ideal image of my college self is shared by plenty of people. I want my education to come first and put maximum time and effort into my studies, but I also wanted to balance a social life and be involved on campus.

Everyone has seen the image of the triangle with socialize, study, or sleep written at one of the points and has the caption “college kids pick two.” This is basically indicating that it is impossible for college students to balance education, socializing, and a steady sleep schedule. When I saw that I thought that I would be an exception and with my extraordinary time management skills I could do it all. Boy was I wrong.

My typical schedule during the weekdays was to go to class, give myself a break and socialize, take the occasional 30-minute public nap, study late into the evening, and finish the day with a couple hours of sleep and lots of caffeine the next morning. Then on the weekend, I would go out and be social up until Sunday midday when I would begin studying again. I thought this was working until I got incredibly sick and was not getting better.

I was super confused about where this illness came from and why it wasn't going away. It turned out to be mono, which surprised the heck out of me. I realized I did not get mono the typical way most college students get it, but because I was getting three/four hours of sleep a night then going and trying to function a whole day. I had worn myself out so far that my immune system was basically nonexistent and it took me months to recover.

I told myself that after those awful 3+ months of me being exhausted and sick I was going to make sure that I focused more on my physical health and devote time to sleeping. So going into my sophomore year I bought a Fitbit and just kind of assumed that would fix all my problems. And boy, was I wrong once again.

This time I was getting sleep (the Fitbit reminders to go to bed and sleep tracking software actual helped), but I was still taking on so much right from the get-go and was forgetting to eat. There were just not enough hours in the day for me to go to class, do homework, be involved in my current organizations, look into other organizations, socialize, and sleep.

I found that in the morning I could get a little more sleep if I skipped making a hardy breakfast and just grabbed coffee or that in between class if I did not waste time getting lunch I could work on homework. It got to the point where 10 p.m. would roll around and I would realize I had not had food that day or friends would have to remind me to eat.

This led to me constantly getting light-headed, which made it harder to be productive and only made me more stressed. And that’s when I started to lose eyebrow hair. Let me repeat that really quickly: I WAS LOSING MY EYEBROW HAIRS! This was super worrisome and for some reason (probably because I’m slightly vain) this was more of a wakeup call than a being sick for months.

I thought I changed my method of madness and was doing great things, but it turns out I was once again neglecting my physical health just in a different way. I know a lot of college students have a difficult time balancing everything, and it’s not until they have a wakeup call, often more dramatic than mine, that they even realize something is wrong.

No student is an exception to the triangle theory. You cannot have a consistent sleep schedule, study schedule, and social life at the same time. But that does not mean you cannot have all three at different times. It’s important to recognize and accept your limits as well as prioritize and be willing to change priorities.

Sometimes you have had a busy a week and all you want to do is go have fun, but you have a ton of school work and need to take a weekend to grind it all out. But there are also times when you have been productive all week and need to take a break and deserve to go out.

The brief time I have spent in college has already been the best time of my life and I would go as far as to say I am thriving in this environment. However, college is a new world and your schedule is not going to be constant ever. It takes time to figure out what works for you but it is important to prioritize mental and physical health. Having a balance of social life, education, and sleep schedule is ideal but nearly impossible and it is perfectly fine to focus on one over the others occasionally.