Time Management for College Athletes

  You finally made it through high school, passed your college entrance exams, and chose the university you are going to attend. Another great thing is that you have been given the opportunity to avail of scholarship for athletes.

You are excited, and at the same time nervous upon entering the college campus, you have no idea what to do next. You first visit your coach and he or she told you that practice starts early in the morning.

After visiting your coach, you now go on to class. As a summary, the first day was not that bad, no assignments, no formal lectures, just plain introduction of the subject and course outline.

Next day, you wake up early in the morning, refreshed and ready to train. The coach is giving you a hard time, and you thought that it is only natural for coaches to give newbie’s a hard time.

After training, you went to your dorm room to get ready for your class. You were in shock when you entered your first class, the professor who seemed so nice turned out to be your worst nightmare. The professor gave each of the students a 1500 word essay with a short deadline, and you thought that you could manage. On the next class, the situation gets worse.

After finishing the class you then go to the field and made friends with the other athletes, everyone was talking about party on that night and invited you to go. Of course, since you want to make an impression and seek their approval, you accepted.

In the party, a thought occurred to you that you still have that 1500 word essay lingering in the back of your mind. Thinking that you can still manage and the deadline is not that short.

After the party, you’re tired and went to your dorm room, and as if all the things you experienced on that day wasn’t enough, your roommate was also having a small party in your dorm room, the music was loud, you couldn’t study, you couldn’t sleep and the place was a complete mess.

You then woke up tired and stressed out, you went to the practice field late, and your performance was the worst performance in your entire life and adding to your poor performance was the thought of the 1500 word essay. The coach was angry with you because of your performance, he was giving you a hard time and telling you to stay and clean the locker room.

At last, you finished cleaning the locker room and you go to your first class of the day quickly but still, ended up late. Your professor, as punishment does not let you into the class because of your tardiness.

The worst thing is that the professor was giving tips on how to write about the essay. You thought about failing the class but that would mean your athlete scholarship would be revoked.

All these may seem impossible but this situation truly happens to college athletes. They should have a more advanced time management skills. Being admitted to college is quite easy. The hard part is effectively managing your time to accomplish all the activities you involved with, and never neglecting your studies.

Many college students find it hard to effectively manage their time between studies and other extra-curricular and social activities. All these may seem easy for an athlete compared to how they are going to manage their time. They go through stressful trainings and could not afford to fail in their academics to enable them to keep competing and keeping their scholarship.

The sudden increase in responsibility is very shocking for college students, especially freshmen and college athletes. You just have to study harder and train harder because of the new level of competition.

You may be the track star back in high school, but in college, many competitors can easily match your record in high school. You have to train harder and study harder to keep competing in your sport.

Here are some time management tips for college athletes:

One of the first things you should include in your time management planning is study time. You have probably done it before back in high school, but it will be quite different in college. It will be a lot harder because you have a limited time for studying.

As a college athlete, you may have contradictions on your match schedules and your classes and even exams. Colleges offer tutors for college athletes to avoid missing their classes and school matches.

Try to talk to your professor about your schedule and he or she might consider transferring you to another class with the same subject on another time.

Once you develop effective time management skills, you will surely have time for your trainings, matches, study time, socializing, and your personal life.