Grades, Track and Partying: Can I conquer all three?

If you mean going out 4 nights a week then hell no. 1 or 2 nights, spending a significant portion of your free time on schoolwork, sure.

Yes, absolutely. And don't settle for some useless pu$$y major and claim it was because you were an athlete. Our distance crew ran respectably, threw legendary parties and had a cumulative GPA of well over 3.5, with predominately hard science majors or double liberal arts majors. One rule you must absolutely abide by if you want to succeed at all three: ONLY DRINK ON SATURDAYS. Race or no race that week, if you follow this and work hard you'll be fine.

No.

Short answer: probably not.

Long answer: it depends on a number of factors. How smart are you really? Was high school easy? What is your major? As most will tell you, college classes are a lot harder than high school, so don't expect to breeze

through them. I've met one person in my life who can handle all three. He was very smart. You may or may not be.

If you are an exceptional individual, you can do one of those three things on an exceptional level, two of them at a very high level, or three of them at a passably good level. You only have so much energy to give. Use it wisely. You'll be on a whole new level on all three. Even if you step your game up, you couldn't do all three at a high level in high school, so it's unlikely that you can in college. Every little choice contributes, choose wisely.

I tried and now I live in a basement down by the river.

I have never seen anyone who strongly valued partying succeed at running in college. That's not to say you can't go out, but a "crazy" partying experience isn't really compatible with school or running. It seems like all the freshmen who come in really gung ho about partying and socializing end up quitting after a season.

Right on cue some guy will come in claiming to be drunk every night and run 1:48 with a 4.0

Probably not ...

In college, even at the lower level D1 schools, most of the guys on the team were the top 10% in high school, or they are guys with mediocre talent but with good work ethic. If you run XC, 8k - 10k races separate the men from the boys. Most of the guys in college are there because they want to be there, you will catch grief if you party and let your team mates down. It was my experience that the dorms were always rowdy the first semester. The dorms were much quieter the 2nd semester, and there were a few more vacancies in the dorms as well. I don't recall anyone on my team who was able to do all 3. The partiers were usually the ones who dropped from the team mid season first semester as freshmen, got injured and continued partying or didn't make the traveling team at the end of the season.

i feel bad for whatever school and program you choose. Just quit.

Depends what you mean by conquering partying. If it is going out once maybe twice a week and you spend most of your free time sleeping and studying yea. Just make sure to eliminate all your distractions and make the most of ALL your time. If you learn to squeeze lots of studying in during the week and study diligently I don't see why it can't be done. You won't watch any t.v. or do anything too interesting during the week, but it can be done. It will take a lot of discipline (and probably no girlfriends).

choose 2.

I forgot to mention, the basement is fully finished with a pool table, foosball, barcalounger, and mini-fridge.

-Jason

so you want to be a triathlete? You can't excel at one so you're going to be mediocre at all three.

casual commentary wrote:

choose 2.

This is correct. You can do all three, but you'll never have all three going well at the same time.

Science! wrote:

This is correct. You can do all three, but you'll never have all three going well at the same time.

i disagree. i was pulling 3.8+ as an engineering major at a uaa school, was AA in two different events, and drank my face off. during my best year, i was taking 22 credits of grad school, had a part-time job, a girlfriend, and was heavily involved in various on-campus activities.

the absolutely biggest key is time management. you have to be *extremely* time-efficient. it also helps if you have the personality where you do better when your schedule is packed vs. when you have lots of free time. you have to be able to be to focus 100% and dedicate your entire mental energy to the task at hand. any procrastination or wasting time will make things exponentially harder. adderall will help. i was also sleeping ~4 hours a night; this also will make things easier.

also it's notable i was a sprinter; doing this while doing the necessary training for distance is probably impossible. most of the other sprinters on my team were heavy pong players (this will sound absurd, but i would honestly estimate that i played 5,000 games of pong during my college career) and drinkers as well. distance guys, not so much.

4 the luv:

you can and you must if for no other reason to prove the little anal d-bags who think you have to live like a monk to run well and get great grades

Rod Dixon: "I just want to drink beer and train like an animal."

enjoy

sizzle was taken wrote:

Yes, absolutely. And don't settle for some useless pu$$y major and claim it was because you were an athlete. Our distance crew ran respectably, threw legendary parties and had a cumulative GPA of well over 3.5, with predominately hard science majors or double liberal arts majors. One rule you must absolutely abide by if you want to succeed at all three: ONLY DRINK ON SATURDAYS. Race or no race that week, if you follow this and work hard you'll be fine.

Listen to this. Only drink on Saturdays indeed. I drink saturdays, sometimes go out thursday/friday and don't drink. I have improved a lot in track and done really well in school. I am naturally smart though. I am not naturally fast though so I had to put in a lot of effort there. Try not to drink so much you are puking every weekend...

define partying.

that's really what it all comes down to. (beer is fine)

It's possible. Keeping 2/3 up is relatively easy. 3/3 requires minimal procrastination in schoolwork and hard work on the running front. Expecting more than 1-3 nights of partying each week is a death sentence to at least one of the other two things you're striving for.