Balancing College Classes and Free Time

College is about more than earning your degree in a career path you want to follow. Sure, that is a huge part of it, but there are more pieces. You also will possibly be living in a college dorm room and making friends. Since there is more to college than earning a degree, there is also more to college than taking your college courses.  

When you’re making your college course schedule at the beginning of each semester, don’t take more classes than you can handle. Sure, when you think about it, taking extra classes and graduating early can seem quite tempting, prompting you to take the maximum amount of courses you can take. However, graduating a semester or two early won’t mean anything if you are burned out and stressed out all the time in college. Taking more than you can handle and burning out will not make college a fun time for you, and at the end of your college career you may end up really regretting it because you wish you lived more in the present and seized the day. 

If at the beginning of the semester you are feeling like you took too many classes and don’t know how you’ll fit in all of the homework for each class into your free time, don’t be afraid to drop the class during the appropriate add/drop time period and take it in a different semester. You’re not giving up on the class or on yourself – you are being realistic. You need to do quality work in each class and if that extra class is going to prevent you from doing that, think about your options and be realistic with what you need to do for yourself. Just make sure you are dropping the class for the right reasons.

So how do you balance what college classes you do take with your homework while still having free time? It’s all about scheduling. Set aside time to work on homework and time to do something for yourself, whether it is getting together with friends, reading for fun, or playing a video game. You need to build in relaxing time for yourself. You may have breaks in between your classes of a half hour or more – decide how you want to use this time. It may be a smart idea to use this time to visit places on campus that will help you knock out some of your homework such as the Library or Computer Lab.  And invest in a large planner for your college courses – it will help you better map out what you have to do immediately, what you can put off for a few days, and when you can get together with friends.