Recently, I’ve watched my roommate juggle her athletic commitments with her academic ones. I’d become interested in how student athletes balance their busy lives, so I decided to ask her about it! I interviewed my roommate about her experience being an athlete here at U Mich and how she balances sports with academics.Â
My roommate (whose name I won’t use) plays on the University of Michigan Women’s Club Ice Hockey team, which she has been a part of for the past 4 months. When I asked her some of her favorite things about being an athlete in college, she said, “I think it’s a great way to be in an environment where you meet people who have similar interests.” She then said that she’s in for more than social reasons, saying, “For me, being an athlete is a big part of who I am, and I think it’s a great way to exercise and maintain health while also going to school.”Â
When asked about the most challenging aspects of being a college athlete, she spoke a little bit about time management. This brought up how sacrifices may sometimes need to be made to accommodate busy schedules, “Balancing your schedule and also, prioritizing whether being an athlete is more important or being a college student is more important.” We spoke a little more about the tradeoff that gets made between school and sports in regards to weekend plans and how to split your time between these two commitments. She emphasized that it really depends on the choices you want to make and when certain things may be more important than others.Â
We kept talking more about balancing school with sports with regards to her previous experience playing lacrosse at a different school before coming to U Mich, “For me, going from playing lacrosse at a high level to hockey at a lower level, the balance is not as hard.” She continued by explaining how different people may balance their schedules differently, saying, “Managing your time and schedule is all dependent on how the person is.” For herself, she said, she’s got a rhythm down to make sure everything gets done: “I try and do my homework every single weekend, on the weekend, for the entire week so I can just do maintenance during the week and then depending on if I have exams, study more because I think my practice schedule being so late, I definitely don’t want to homework when I get home so I try and do it on the weekends.” I thought this was a great example of strategies that college athletes may employ to accommodate academic and athletic facets of their lives in a balanced way.Â
I asked her a little bit about what she felt she had gained from playing a sport in college, to which we laughed about a bit—she commented that her girlfriend likes that she plays hockey, so that’s a big plus for her. On a more serious note, we spoke about the friendships made: “Playing on the team for such a short period of time, I’ve already made a lot of friends.” She went on to explain the non-social gains she has made from athletics, saying, “I also just love to play sports for my mental health, I think it’s good for my mental health.”
I finished up our conversation by asking about her post-graduate plans regarding hockey, and if she thinks she will keep playing, “I don’t think I’ll play after college, like maybe occasionally, but nothing serious.” She added, “I think that I want my kids to or like to help coach younger athletes,” when asked about her future plans relating to the sport.Â