The State of College Sports

With the recent decisions across collegiate athletics to either postpone seasons to the spring, cancel NCAA championships across DII and DIII, or cancel fall sports all together has left a lot of uncertainty in the world of college sports going forward. If you’re a student-athlete that all of a sudden is not training for a season to start in 3 weeks, you might be confused on what to do going forward. On top on your season being postponed or cancelled, your classes are moving online, and your primary role is now being a student. Maybe this is a new focus for you or maybe you have always focused on being a great student, but either way you can use this as an opportunity to improve as a student and strive for the Dean’s List this semester while implementing new training techniques to take your game to the next level.

Elevate Your Student Side

With a whole new dynamic to school being online, it could be useful to add new tools to your student toolbox. You might notice having more free time these last few months and as school gets rolling it’s a good time to set up a daily routine to maximize your productivity. As a student, I will be honest, I procrastinated on assignments and crammed the nights before (or the morning of) exams. What I learned from doing that though is that there are definitely better ways to do it in a way that is less stressful. 

The first way to improve your study habits is to study less daily. Now you might be questioning that logic so let me explain. You will still studying 15-20 hours per week, but you can do it in a more efficient way that will have your brain thanking you. Instead of doing long 6-hour study sessions for that Chem 200 test or that Math 150 midterm, you can study for each class you have for 30 minutes a day 5-6 days a week. By studying for one class for a 30-minute chunk per day, you’re not going to burnout your cognitive resources like you would by staring at a textbook for 3 hours straight. This will help your brain process and remember what you study instead of just remember bits and pieces. After every 30-minute study chunk, I would recommend taking 10-15 minutes to walk around or go for a short jog, go for a Starbucks run, or chat with some friends. This will give you a break, get your blood flowing, and allow you to reset and refocus for the next chunk of studying.

Another way to maximize your productivity is to plan out times to work on assignments for your classes. By putting set times in your schedule to work on a specific assignment will give you a sense of accountability. You will be able to sit down and zone in on your assignment. Treat it like a practice. During that hour or two hours that you are working on your homework, that is all you are doing. You are working hard, striving to be the best student you can be. Taking that alpha sports mentality into the other parts of your life, especially the student part, will help make you successful. 

A third tip to help you be the best student you can be is possibly the least popular option with college students, but it is effective. Turn. Off. Your. Phone. If your phone is on and constantly buzzing with notifications from Insta, Twitter, TikTok, ESPN, or whatever else, it’s going to be hard to zone in and focus on the task at hand. If you’re doing these 30-minute study chunks, you can turn your phone back on and check your notifications while you go for a walk or get your coffee. Turning off your phone will help increase your attention span and limit the amount of distractions you are faced with. 

These are some of the study tips I have learned over the years and I hope that you take these and implement at least one of them into your daily routine going into this semester. You can’t control the uncertainty of your sport season, so focus on what you can control and improve your study habits. Be the best student you can be and set goals to make the Dean’s List this semester.