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Maintaining focus

Being a student has a variety of challenges associated with it that is unlike anything else that I have experienced. When it comes to managing your schedule, a work-life balance, or your social life, it seems like you’re always being thrown curveballs.

Club meetings usually start at 9 p.m., and the earliest classes start at 8 a.m. Clubs are certainly different from classes, in the sense that they’re voluntary, so everyone that goes to them definitionally wants to be there. But the end result of this is that you have something that you have to do at the end of the day. By padding the beginning and the end of your day with work-like activities, everything between also starts to feel like work, or like a lunch break.

I don’t envy the working life, working every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., but it has the advantage of being able to go home and do whatever you want for the rest of the night. My days usually follow the order of ‘wake up,’ ‘go to class,’ ‘do something besides class,’ ‘go to class,’ ‘go to a club,’ and ‘go to sleep.’ Obviously, I treasure being here—and being able to see old friends has been magical—but it doesn’t mean that it’s not tiring too.

Simply trying to keep the different kinds of work in order is its own challenge. Eight hours of work on one thing is very different from eight hours of sporadic work on several different things. On top of the work itself, there is organizational work that has to be done in order to determine when an assignment is due, or how long you need to study for the next exam. It’s a constant game of figuring out what you have to do next, and then shifting your mental gears to try and accommodate the next problem.

This kind of work has made me realize how important it is to live in the moment. All the different tasks that have to get done perpetuates the sense that there’s always something you haven’t finished yet. You could finish all your homework for the next few days, but there’s always that next assignment looming over the horizon. And unlike a job, this lasts from the time of your first class to the time you go to bed at night. Homework and studying often extend into the weekend, the time that is most explicitly used for rest and enjoyment.

I solve this by trying to take a few moments throughout the day to do absolutely nothing. For example, I pour myself a cup of tea and spend some time clearing my thoughts. It’s important to consciously relax and cast off any doubts or worries that bother you.

I think different people have different responses to this kind of work. I definitely prefer to work on one thing at a time, since that way I can really focus on what’s at hand, but that’s not true for everyone. Whatever your work style, I hope that you can find a way to make being a student easier.


Senioritis is an Opinion column written by one or two Stevens student(s) in their last year of study to discuss life experiences during their final year at Stevens, and other related subject matter. 

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