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[Phys-l] Time Management (was cramster)



Under the cramster thread, Chuck Britton mentioned the "three S's" of sleep, study, social life.

Today I would add a J and an A: sleep, study, social life, job, athletics.

If a student takes about 15-hours of coursework and follows the usual guideline of 2 hours studying for each hour in class, the student is spending about 45 hours per week on coursework. If that is true, then if the student cannot manage sleep and social life, that student is in for a rude awakening when he enters the workforce after college. Assuming the college degree puts her into a salaried position rather than an hourly position, she will likely spend more than 40 hours per week on the job.

Therefore, I don't worry too much about sleep, study, and social life if those are the only things going on. However, when you add a job or athletics (or both), things can become impossible.

Almost all our students have a job. If the job is a campus job we limit it to 8 hours per week. That's not too bad. But we can't prevent students from taking an off-campus job... many do... these can be any number of hours... and the off-campus job can be in addition to an 8-hour campus job. One or more of the three S's has to suffer. Generally sleep and study both suffer.

Now throw in the additional time-burner of participating in an intercollegiate sport. Athletes not only have practice and games and travel; they also have weight training and running that is supposed to happen in addition to practice, and these training regimens continue all year long (not just during the season of the particular sport).

At a large school (multiple thousands of students) the number of students playing an intercollegiate sport is a small percentage of the student body. However, I'm afraid the small colleges and universities have become the haven of student athletes who enjoyed participating in high school sports, and don't want it to end, but aren't good enough to make the team at a large school, so they choose a small school where they are likely to make the team, and might even see some playing time. At a school like mine (roughly 1000 students), we can have between 30 and 40% of our students participating on an intercollegiate athletic team.

If I lurk around the Facebook accounts of my students, it saddens me how many students say something like... I'm attending Bluffton to play baseball... I chose Bluffton to play volleyball... I'm at Bluffton to play soccer.

I certainly get the feeling that the primary reason students are choosing to attend a small college/university is because they can't bear the thought of ending their athletic-team participations that were such an important part of their lives in high school. Not only is that a pretty lousy reason to pay tuition of over $20k per year, it also means the sport is so important that when time runs out it won't be the sport that suffers. Study or sleep or both will suffer.

I will give credit to the coaches for trying hard to teach time-management skills. Sometimes it works, especially if the student is bright and can be productive during the little study time they have. But the students who need more than the average amount of study time, or who also have a job, or who also demand a rich social life... just aren't going to make it.

I have been criticized for being anti-athletics. I wouldn't describe it that way. Rather, I would say the I believe a student needs a better reason for going to college than to play four more years of a sport. However, given the emphasis on sports in high school (at least in northwestern Ohio), students are conditioned to see athletics as a primary reason for going to college and for selecting a particular school. Also, given the importance of winning, and of playing (as opposed to sitting on the bench), I see students who spend all their not-sleeping and not-in-class time devoted to their sport.

With jobs and athletics going on, it is no wonder students turn to cramster.com or other methods of trying to get by.

I wish it would be possible to return to just the three S's of sleep, study, social life.


Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry and Physics
Bluffton University
Bluffton, OH 45817
(419)-358-3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu