Balancing school and social life

Allyah Rodriguez, Staff Writer

A common struggle that every student must come to terms with in college is balancing their social life with their school life. With the school year well under way, many may be finding themselves increasingly overwhelmed with their course load and social activities.

Schoolwork alone can be enough of a cause for frustration without even considering how to factor in your personal life. While it is hard to constantly hear the phrase “time management,” it may be motivating to know that what works for one person may not work for you. Since everyone deals with this kind of stress differently, students around campus rated their social lives and gave insight as to what helps them make time for the things that are most important.

“It does take away from my personal life having class four days a week and then working on Fridays most of the day, which only gives me weekends dedicated to my personal life, but then I also need those weekends for homework,” junior Victoria Ricciutisaid.

Despite this, on a scale of one to 10, Ricciuti rates her social life as being a seven. She attributes this to sharing a major with most of her friends and being a part of the same clubs. She also mentioned that she and her friends find it important to have dinner together every week.

Senior Andre Gidden says his calendar is the key to managing his time.

“I have a personal calendar that I use, and I also have reminders to tell me when I have something to do about an hour or thirty minutes in advance, so that’s pretty much how I go about my day,” Gidden said.

Gidden rated his social life as being a four despite having such a system for keeping his time organized. He attributes this to being unable to find coinciding free time amongst himself and his friends. His system works best for time management in regards to school and his various extracurricular activities on campus, which are the most important things to him as a senior.

Junior Brianna Fornasari thinks it is important not to disregard your mental health.

“I give myself specific times for everything,” Fornasari said. “I will dedicate certain time for my relationship, certain time for my school work and I have set schedules for work and class. I have three planners: one for school, one for my personal life and one for the club that dominates my life. I make sure to keep everything separate from each other – especially my personal mental health – because I’ve noticed that things get the most hectic and stressful when all the other parts of your life combine.”

Fornasari rated her social life as being an eight. Her reasoning is that she is able to spend time with her partner because their class schedules and work schedules align.

Junior Eddie Maffia depends on a planner to manage all his extracurricular activities.

“I do a lot of things on campus with Greek life and a lot of things with my academics in the Mass Communicationsdepartment,” Maffia said. “I definitely have a planner so I try to write everything for my week in there, but social stuff comes after school so I definitely try to aim to get my work done first.”

Maffia rated his social life as being an eight based off of his ability to still go out with his friends on the weekend.

Everyone at Iona is in the same boat. Juggling school, work and your social life is a big challenge that may take some trial and error in finding what works best for you. Once you figure it out, everything will fall into place.