Exams. Papers. Deadlines. Stress. Sound familiar?
The middle of the semester can easily become a scheduling nightmare for the unsuspecting college student. Every time you finish an assignment, two more seem to crop up. It becomes way too simple to succumb to the endless cycle of work and commitments and let them become your entire life.
I urge you to resist.
Amidst all the chaos, it’s extremely difficult to step back and take the time to do things that are fun. Every ounce of the free time you don’t have goes toward things to keep you functional— showers, meals, laundry, etc. Perhaps the most terrifying thing is that with this kind of schedule, a week goes by in the blink of an eye. Suddenly it’s March, and you have no idea how you got there.
I know the feeling. Which is why I started including time for myself on my schedule.
I’m not kidding when I say I literally have spaces blocked out on my weekend calendar for rest, relaxation, and fun. And while having them sometimes means that I have to make other sacrifices during the week (working during meals, or waking up early/going to bed late), it is so worth it for me to be able to ditch Oxford for a few hours over the weekend. After all, Atlanta is only an hour away, and there is so much of it to explore!
So get out there, guys. Don’t let school suck you into a void. Find the time to discover the world outside the Oxford Bubble. Get to know you again.
But don’t forget your education completely.
After all, your personal interests can become academic experiences, too. Go to the Georgia Aquarium and write about it in your next Bio paper. Visit the Center for Civil and Human Rights and mention it in History class. Exercise your first-amendment rights by marching in a protest, and ask your Poli-Sci or WGS professors how to get even more involved. Go to a theatre show, a concert, or an art museum and become more cultured (whether that’s pop culture or ‘traditional’ culture is your prerogative). Learn and explore everywhere, in everything you do. And take the surprising knowledge you gain in your time off and integrate it back into your classes. That, to me, is a much more healthy cycle than restricting yourself to required readings and formulaic essays.
Moral of the story? Start carving out time for you. Relax when you need to, but never stop imbibing knowledge day-to-day. And, hey. If a baseline knowledge of almost everything from your liberal arts education and your outside experiences serves you nowhere else, you’ll at least be able to destroy your family and friends in trivia. Just putting it out there.