Academics and extracurricular activities are both essential to international students but there’s the need to strike a balance between the two activities to ensure successful learning and great college experience. To enjoy the best of both worlds, international students need to be effective time managers.
How can you do that successfully? You need to
- Plan
- Choose your extracurricular activities
- Connect your extracurricular activities to your academics
- Create time for leisure
- Seek advice
Let’s be more elaborate about how doing these can help you strike a balance between academics and extracurricular activities.
1. Plan
The first and most essential way to balance academics and extracurricular activities as international students is through planning. Draw up a schedule of your activities bearing in mind your priorities. Then, allocate your time in such a way that your studies, work, personal life, and extracurricular activities receive adequate attention.
2. Choose your Extracurricular Activities
Yet another factor to be considered is the extracurricular activities to participate in. Participating in every extracurricular activity is not feasible, it’ll simply distract you from your academics. So choose activities that are in line with your interests and are most beneficial to you just as you carefully chose your courses. The skills you pick up in the field will come in handy in the workplace.
3. Connect Extracurricular Activities to your Academics
Extracurricular activities are very important to international students. Therefore one way to enjoy the best of both worlds is to connect them. For instance, if you’re taking a Math major, choose extracurricular activities that require critical thinking and calculations like basketball. This makes learning and plays both fun and beneficial.
4. Create time for Leisure
Remember the famous saying, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy?” Well, it’s still true. Having spent a lot of time and energy studying, you should take out time to relax occasionally. Do things that make you laugh, happy, and relaxed. These are good stimulants for the brain and make you perform better academically.
5. Seek Advice
When it becomes too difficult to strike a balance, ask your colleagues or academic counsellor for assistance in planning your schedule. Yet again, two good heads are better than one so, their insights will help you put things in a proper perspective.
With these points, international students can efficiently strike a balance between their academics and extracurricular activities.