When it comes to time management, college puts you to the test. Managing your time is everything as an athlete in college. Between practice, games, classes, and studying time seems to fly by and it feels like you are getting nothing accomplished. Here are a few tips on how to balance the teeter-totter of school and sports.
Get a planner to write out all of your assignments and when they are due to make sure not to miss them and lose points. This may be insane, but take time out of a day to look over every syllabus from each of your classes. Then, highlight all the important dates a paper, a test or another assignment is due and transfer the dates into your planner for the whole semester. The final step is planning out what days you work on each assignment to get it done for the due date.
Schedule a meeting with your academic advisor. The advisors help to make sure you are getting your work done and are not failing classes. If you fail more than two classes the school can suspend the athlete from practices and not allow you to participate in games either. This is why you should meet with your advisor every week to keep track of how well you are doing in all of your classes. They can also schedule the athlete to be tutored if they are struggling in a class to help boost their final grade. Athletes can also talk to their coaches about their struggle with balancing their schoolwork with their practice and game schedule. The coaches and athletes can work together to come to a happy medium.
Another tip is to NEVER procrastinate. Waiting until the last minute to do all of your assignments will be the death of you. It causes late nights, not your best effort, and not a promising passing grade. Planning ahead is the key ingredient to keep that 2.0 GPA and allow you to keep playing your sport at the collegiate level. Even working a few weeks ahead of schedule can keep the load light in the long run. It takes the stress off of athletes to focus on winning their big games that day and not worrying about what schoolwork they need to finish when they get home.
Athlete’s get the stereotypical title of dumb and do not get a lot of credit for being academically praised while playing a sport. Non-athletes think the athletes only care about their sport and they get everything handed to them, but little do they know many athletes hold a GPA of 3.0 or higher.
By using these tips athletes see a better outcome by using their study hours to finish most of their work and get help from tutors on subjects they are struggling with. This helps athletes to lessen their workload whenever they have games or practices during the week to cause less stress so they can focus on their sport. Balancing academics and sports is a juggling act that can be solved by following these tips for the best outcome.
