Day in the Life of a Student Athlete

Balancing the academic rigor of a Pre-Med track with clubs, social life, and major requirements is challenging, but adding a sport can push one’s requirements to an overwhelming level. I am Charlotte Laidler, a member of the softball team at Columbia University, majoring in biology and following the pre-med track at school. In a sort of reversed logic, playing a sport has helped me improve my ability to balance all the different requirements I have in my daily life. I was fortunate enough to have access to a pre-med track at my high school, which aided in me mastering my time management skills before college. The best way to break down how I keep on top of my assignments while in season is to take you through a weekend of traveling for games! To start this season, we traveled to Boca Raton, Florida, from February 22nd through 25th. I had a biology exam the next week, so I had already been studying, knowing I wouldn’t have as much time as I would want leading up to the exam.

We left campus at 3:45 AM Thursday and landed in Florida around noon. We had about an hour and a half at the gate before we boarded the plane, so I grabbed some coffee and worked on some practice problems to pass the time. Once we got on the flight, I was satisfied with what I had gotten done before takeoff and decided to nap, as we had practice directly after we landed in Florida. We checked into our hotel around 3:30 PM and had some downtime before our team dinner. I completed a journal entry for Art Humanities and a PSET for my psychology class since it was relatively mindless. I was still pretty tired from the day of travel and knew that anything I did towards studying for biology wouldn’t be productive. I prioritized getting my “easier” homework done while tired so that I was still productive but saving the more mentally taxing assignments for when I would be more awake on Saturday and Sunday. After dinner, it was about 8 PM, and I was running on fumes at that point. I did my Spanish homework for the weekend since it was still pretty early in the evening. 

Afterward, I went to bed and woke up at 6 AM the following day. We played two games on Friday and returned to the hotel around 4 PM. After we got back, I showered. The Florida heat alone had me exhausted, so playing on top of that, I desperately needed a nap. Losing the time may not sound ideal, but I learned early in high school that quality of study time is much more important than length. Even though I lost about an hour and a half of studying that night, the time I was working on biology was much more productive than it would’ve been without the nap. I completed one of the two practice exams. I reviewed the answers, reviewing the material of the questions I missed to ensure I understood where I went wrong in my thought process and starring anything I needed to review with a TA or professor during office hours when we returned to campus. 

After that, I finished the second half of my Art Humanities assignment (I had to wait for my partner to send me their half of the work). After that, I took some time to myself before going to bed pretty early again since I was too tired to work on any more homework. The next day, we had one game in the evening, so I woke up around 8 AM and went to my house to spend the morning with my parents since our games were 30 minutes from where I grew up. I ate breakfast with them and got some practice problems done for biology before just hanging out with them before heading back to my hotel. The rest of the day I was unable to do homework, as the game ended around 8 PM and we were up early the next day. Sunday, we had two games in the morning that finished around 2 PM. After that, we showered and had lunch with our families before saying goodbye and heading to the airport. I napped on the 30-minute drive to the airport, giving myself a little energy to get some work done after security. I continued to study up to and during the flight, eventually hitting a wall and napping the last hour of our flight. Once we landed, my main focus was on getting all our stuff back on the bus and into our locker room when we returned to the athletic facilities, and it was so late at night that any more studying would be counterproductive. I went to bed as soon as we got home, as it was well past midnight, and we had classes the next day.

Writing down the entire weekend makes it sound exhausting and challenging to keep up with, but I use two essential tools to ensure I stay on track throughout these busy weekends. The first and most important part of maintaining this schedule is an academic planner. I use a digital template that allows me to write down any and all assignments I want to complete on each day of the week. Before we travel, I sit down and plan out what assignments I want to work on each day, alongside my athletic schedule for the weekend. It isn’t perfect in what gets done when, but having a plan helps me stay on track and on top of work, so if an assignment needs to be done earlier or later, I can make that minor adjustment without feeling overwhelmed by the change. The second tool I use is my teammates, as we all have demanding academic schedules. We keep each other on track, creating study areas or declaring one person’s room a homework area if anyone needs it. By working in the same area together, we can keep each other focused and on track, but we can also help each other out if we get stuck anywhere on an assignment, as many of us overlap in our areas of study and classes. It is a lot of work at times to balance academics and athletics. Still, I wouldn’t change a thing, as it has taught me such vital skills that will serve me long after I stop playing, and has also given me some of my closest friends in this world, who I love dearly and will forever be in debt to softball for giving them to me.