Being a student athlete is a rewarding endeavor to take on in college. Most of us get scholarship money to help us pay for school, many of us make lifelong friends out of our teammates, and still others fulfill our dreams of continuing the sports we love at the collegiate level. But being a college athlete isn't all sunshine and rainbows. It's tough and it's time consuming, and sometimes we wish we could just be NARPs like the rest of campus.

There are times when I find myself significantly less grateful for my status as an athlete. Whenever I see my friends post pictures of beach trips or mountain adventures, I lament the fact that my weekends are 'wasted' with other things. Pretty much every Saturday during regular season, and a good portion during spring season, are spent on the road or at home playing matches. Sundays are reserved for catching up on sleep and working on on a week's worth of papers, studying, and assignments.

Then comes the scheduling conflicts with.. well, literally everything else. Jobs, classes, sorority events; if you can name it, I've missed it because of volleyball. Even my final recruitment for my sorority, something most girls look forward to and are nostalgic about? I missed every bit of it because of practices and a tournament. I work two minimum-wage on-campus jobs, because they're willing to work around a practice schedule that can change just hours before. If I wasn't a student athlete, I could be making much more money as an off-campus tutor, or other job.

And that's not to mention the many obstacles that student-athletes face when everything isn't going normally. Injury and sickness are incredibly common for college athletes, and can be one of the most negative experiences an athlete can have. There's nothing worse than finding out your college sports career has caused permanent damage to your body, or being sick for three straight weeks because you never get a break to get rest. Maintaining health is more difficult for those with stress and busy schedules.

Being a student athlete can feel like a burden much of the time, and that's even if you are still truly passionate about your sport and haven't been burned out. And athletes are often told to be grateful for the opportunities and their scholarship money, and to shut up about everything else. So for every person out there who sometimes finds themselves struggling with the negative aspects of being a student-athlete, I hear you, and I'm with you.