WARWICK — Maintaining academic success while playing a sport could be very difficult, especially at the collegiate level.  Many student-athletes express their struggle with adapting and succeeding in a lifestyle between juggling sports and schoolwork at the same time. During a brief conversation with Stephanie Walker, a current player of the women’s basketball team at the Community College of Rhode Island, she shared lessons she’s acquired during her academic career that helped her thrive academically and athletically. 

“It can be very difficult managing basketball and good grades sometimes. Playing a sport in college can be very time consuming, and coming home from practice or a game just to see a bunch of homework assignments waiting for you doesn’t make anything any easier,” said Stephanie. “Time management was my biggest obstacle standing in between me and my academic success. I had a bad habit of pushing everything aside for last minute emergencies. Instead of creating a schedule around basketball that was breathable for me and helpful for my schoolwork to get done on time.”

According to Stephanie, time managing is the biggest component in either academic success, or failure. Being able to plan accordingly, schedule ahead of time, and prioritize your schedule will only push you to academic success. Especially if you have of activities of responsibilities outside of school, such as work or sports. 

“One thing I did to help push me to be a successful student-athlete last semester was prioritizing my schedule” said Stephanie. “I had games every Tuesdays, Thursdays, and most of the weekends during my season. So, I decide to use Monday and Friday afternoons to only be designated to schoolwork. This helped me avoid last minute emergencies and allowed me to be on top of all my schoolwork, without having it conflict with my basketball schedule.”

Stephanie is a great example to many student- athletes struggling academically and a great reminder of how important time management is. Many strategies you can adapt to help develop your time management is to prioritize, avoid multitasking, eliminate distractions, and set boundaries to complete your goals.