Being in love is a magical feeling that everyone goes through in life, whether that would be short term or long term relationships. Even the smartest kid in class can fall in love and be committed to their significant other. However, we are in college. A place where people are either taking their academic journey seriously or are still deciding whether their major is the right choice for them. This leads us to question, does being in a loving, committed relationship slow down your academic performance? This can be tricky to some students, because it all depends on your determination to succeed, your focus to get work done, and sacrifices you need to make along the way.
Whoever the person is, love can cause a blur to your sense of thoughts. In a study conducted by Henk van Steenbergen, he concluded that: “People who are in love are less able to focus and to perform tasks that require attention.” Forty-three participants who had been in a relationship for 6 months or more performed a n umber of tasks that mainly focused on their attentiveness to discriminate irrelevant to relevant information as quickly as they can. The results were shocking, it appeared that the more in love they were, the less they were able to ignore irrelevant information. So yes, being in love can slow down your academic success in gathering relevant information. However, I’m not trying to stop you from forming relationships in college in the first place, there is still hope that you can be focused to get work done, become successful, and still be in love at the same time.
My Experience with Love
Being a transfer student at RIT gave me the opportunity to try out something new and explore what my program has to offer. I was stuck with the mentality that I am going to do my best academically, improve my art skills as proficient as no one can imagine, and not fall in love. Although, not everything can go the way you planned it out to be. I forgot to realize that living alone in your dorm, away from your family can cause a huge distortion to your expectations. Eventually, I met a guy that changed my life in the span of three months, and he was there to support me all the way. This led me towards going through the path of having so much anxiety to being in love and not being able to focus on my classes. It was a spiral of emotions and trying to distinguish what I need to be focusing on.
How Did I Do It?
The level of being inattentive is unimaginable, but I did not make any sacrifices. Instead, I am still with this person till this day and I am doing well in my classes right now. So, how did I do it?.\ Well, with my level of commitment to do well in class and not break a loving relationship, I follow these three basic steps:
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Communicate to your significant other that you are busy
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Turn off your phone
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Focus on the task that needs to be completed.
The reward of your task is to finally be able to open your phone and see the message of your significant other, hooray! Easy peasy, is that it? No. It takes time to be able to redirect your focus and try to get all your work done. The brain needs to rewire itself and get back on track with your daily routine. The first step is to realize that you are addicted to this person and that you need to step back and realize that you have a career ahead of you.
My advice is to follow your guts and see which works best for you. If that person loves you, they will listen and understand your concerns. Mental health is as important as your studies, so do not break off a relationship that supported you and loved you along the way.
