Oct. 31, 2011
Question sent in from Cathy
"I am not going to lie it is very hard to balance those two out, but you have to learn and keep pushing through. You really have to focus on each aspect of school and gymnastics to stay on top of everything and to succeed." - Krystal Welsh
"For me personally, it is pretty challenging. You have to be very good at managing your time wisely. Taking advantage of the tutors and mentors are also a really big help." - Lexi Carroll
"It is very hard to balance school and gymnastics, but we have a lot of people here at Penn State that are there tell help us. If we utilize the opportunities we are given it is a lot easier. Even though it may be hard it still a lot of fun and well worth it!" - Kassidy Stauder
"It's always a challenge to balance the demands of school and gymnastics but I would say that freshman year is the most challenging. It's a very different kind of transition going into college and you really have to know how to manage your time. I struggled with that my freshman year and even a little bit of sophomore year and now I am really figuring out how to manage my time which helps tremendously. Once you figure that out, it is definitely easier to balance out the demands of school and gymnastics." - Sharaya Musser
"It's hard, being a student-athlete takes a lot of time management and organization in order to fit everything in." - Madison Merriam
"It is pretty challenging for me. I am finally just now starting to get the hang of it and I was here for the summer. It definitely takes a lot of planning and organizing for me to get the best use out of my day." - Alex Witt
"Freshman year is probably the toughest year with trying to manage school work and gymnastics. Everything is brand new to you. You now how have to attend mandatory morning practices, mandatory regular practices, community service, weekend with recruits, and on top of that, your school work is a lot more different than high school work. You have to learn how to manage your free time and you have to organize when and on what days you do certain school work." - Kristin Blades
"My most difficult adjustment coming into college was learning how to balance my time with academics and athletics. Having the title of "student-athlete" explains that you have two priorities as a college student which is one more than your average student. Time management is the key to success. Fortunately, student-athletes have all the possible resources you could ever dream of. We are lucky enough to be provided with an athletic advisor, free tutors, mentors, teammates and coaches who are all available to help you adjust your first semester. However, once you develop your time management skills, the balance between academics and athletics just becomes natural. You develop a schedule that works best for you and if you need help, there is always someone there to help you out. This year, our team developed a mentoring schedule, which had each freshman meeting with an upperclassman at least one a week to check in and see how they were adjusting. Once you are an upperclassman, you have a lot of helpful and useful knowledge to pass on to the new freshman which will help them adjust to their new roles of being student-athletes." - Natalie Ettl
"It is definitely tough, because we not only have practices, but we also do tons of community service and many team building activities. Then, on top of that, we have to keep up with our schoolwork. We are pretty much busy all the time, but I couldn't ask for more from a college experience." - Lindsay Musgrove
"It is quite difficult to balance school work with gymnastics, but we have such an amazing support system here at Penn State, that simplifies the lives for all student athletes. From tutors, to study halls, to a great advising staff, we, student athletes, are very fortunate. It's all about time management. Getting your work done as soon as you get home from practice, and using every spare minute you have during the day, makes it easier to have a relaxing weekend, without having to manage homework along with everything else that needs to be done. There will be some late nights here and there, but that's college!" - Daryl Konsevick