Adjusting as a Varsity Athlete to the University Lifestyle

Being a varsity athlete takes a lot of effort and is extremely difficult to maintain at the university level. Many incoming athletes struggle with maintaining a competitive GPA while performing exceptionally well at their particular sport. As veteran varsity athletes, we know what it takes to be a true “student-athlete” and have some great tips for you to reach your potential.

In this article, we will focus on three main subjects: how to maintain good study habits, keeping up with deliverables while travelling and using school resources to get ahead of the curve.

During your season practice, film, weight room and other training activities will take a significant chunk out of your daily schedule. For some sports like basketball, athletes can experience weeks of 20-25 hours of sport related activities not including games and traveling. This is a significant amount of time taken out of your daily routine and can put a new student into a downward spiral. Therefore, varsity athletes, more than anyone, should be maximizing their free time to improve study habits and get ahead of their tasks. The three main steps that should always be taken to improve study habits are as follows: take notes at all costs, maintain a well-designed schedule to stay on top of all tasks and always start early on any assignment, test, presentation etc. Having great notes is another key to success, for without notes you could be put in significant risk of forgetting topics, class points, discussions takeaways and other valuable information. We believe that having well written notes is so important that we have made a separate blog post just for it here . This link focuses on all the main attributes of having exceptional notes and the viable options that students can take towards creating them. Moreover, having a well-designed schedule is the backbone to your success in school. Without one you will certainly forget important commitments and miss out on great opportunities to excel in school and in sports. Therefore, we have given you two outstanding links for templates that can be used in Microsoft office and Excel. These templates are easy to follow and have step by step process on inputting the data you want. Having a marvelous schedule will let you keep track of all your action items and provide you with a greater understanding of the upcoming days/weeks that are to follow. Finally, starting early on any assignments, tests, presentations and other class tasks is critical for a varsity athlete. With lots of traveling that occurs during the season, your weekends will always be busy. Therefore, you need to start well in advance and take multiple steps to completing your designated class duties. Start small and brainstorm ways to complete a given task. This could include setting out milestones that need to be finished and taking the process slowly. With a longer span of time you will have reduced your stress levels and increased the quality of the finished product.

(Microsoft Word Templates)

During the season traveling can play a significant part towards disorienting a student athlete. Traveling is entertaining, a novel experience and in turn something that can trigger many distractions that prevent you from completing school assignments and related tasks. Thus, it is essential to maintain a high level of competency when it comes to completing work on the road. It is something that takes time to excel in but is very rewarding. During the week of your travels you should create an agenda on either your computer or on a piece of paper. You should put the main tasks you want to complete during the weekend of your traveling and the steps you will take to accomplish these set tasks. You must make sure to be thorough but in a concise manner. This is key to setting your mind in the right direction; this will get your brain thinking and push you to recognize any possible work that needs to be completed in the coming days/weeks.

Lastly, varsity athletes have a wide range of school resources that they can use. Many athletes are supported by the school because they are known for having harder time in university. Therefore, many schools offer free tutoring, counselling and additional guidance to aid student athletes. It is extremely important to contact your coach or head office to ask about possible assistance that the school can give you.

We hope this article opens your eyes to the various ways you can excel as a student athlete in university. Stay tuned for next weeks article's which will focus on the coaches report for Queen's University and Dalhousie University. if you have any questions about being a student athlete or any other topic we looked forward to hearing from you!