Is is possible to be a good college student and do own "housekeeping" chores?

[starrrr]

Being a "good" college student requires you make time for studying, lectures, and social events, i.e. friends, related to your interests, campus discussions, etc...

 

I think a lot of students do not practice healthy habits. I'm taking about here the habits of taking care of one's own personal needs, like laundry, eating right, self care, etc.

 

Understandably there are pressures and expectations to be met set by yourself and others, and there are many "work" to be done it seems, but in my question I want to address the college student lifestyle, what it is and what it should be.

 

Bottom line is I want to be a good student, which I define as someone who's really learning all of what they need to know, and be able to "live," get all my "housekeeping" chores done on time.

 

If you do not have this problem, as in you are able to take care of yourself physically, biologically, mentally, etc, not those who do not see this as an issue and are more than happy to just be living this kind of lifestyle of doing what you need when you can do it, please share your insights. Do you make the time to do your laundry, make your lunch, cook healthy food, exercise, keep your home clean, buy groceries, run errands, talk to loved ones, etc..what else you do, and do all of these things regularly and routinely?? Okay anyone with any thoughts on this, please share.

 

 

Okay I wanted to extend this, to whoever's read this far thats not a college student, how do you do your work/job and also not let it be your ENTIRE life? Hmm, now i wonder if I am caterogizing these things, seperating them, too tightly. It's all life, they all relate to one another, but how do people know when to stop "working," which now I can see as really never ending if you view all the things we do as work, from our jobs to brushing our teeth at night, but what i'm really wondering about is when you are passionate, how do you reign in it to better make use of it? Or you don't and you just let it reign free...do losses become unavoidable...

[Mercurial Girl]

I did those things regularly and routinely all the time (fine some things got put off some times, like midterms, but never laundry cause I don't have enough clothes to ever skip that!) PLUS had a job and a small side business. I'm hardly good at taking advantage of all my waking hours like a lot of the energizer bunnies/type A's I know and still had no problem.

 

If you're having a hard time with this I would look into some time management skills, making a daily schedule for yourself and sticking to it, spending a few hours at a time making big pots of food and portioning it out over the entire week, etc.

[EQIQ]

My GF came to Canada to study in university as an international student. She had no access to a government loan (international student), and had no family here to support her. She had to work to pay for her tuition (at least 2X higher than Canadian students), rent, food, etc. Do day to day chores (no one would do it for her off course, even though she lived with some people for a while, so I guess it was shared for some of the time she was studying), and she studied full-time. She graduated on the Dean's List, (i.e did really well in her courses). Also would spend around 6 hours weekly in religious meetings. How did she do it? I have no idea... I am so proud of her hard work even though it was before we met, but shows me what type of person she is.

 

One thing I know she did though was take a coop style course. And would also work hard on the summers to make money for the following term. She studied Environmental Science and Business.

[Firiel]

Yeah, I managed all those things too. Right now, I'm a full-time grad student who is also teaching two classes as the university. I work out six days a week and manage to eat (relatively) healthily. Here are some rules that I follow:

 

1. Make working out an appointment with yourself. I get up at 6:00 six days a week and go for a 3-6 mile run (depending on the day). It's not something that I consider negligible. I am not allowed to just "skip" it. If I need to cancel, I can, but only if I have a reason that I deem appropriate the night before. I'm not allowed to cancel the morning of. For instance, a few weeks ago, I was tired, feeling a little sick and overwhelmed, and realized I hadn't taken a day off for almost three months. So I planned a sleep-in day and skipped my run with no guilt.

 

2. Making a meal and eating it over the entire week. I do what Mercurial Girl does. I make one dinner and then basically eat it all week for one meal a day. So then I can make quick but relatively healthy things (sandwiches, fruit, cereal) for breakfast and lunch and have a more substantial dinner.

 

3. Make your schoolwork an appointment too. It's easy to let school consume your every waking hour so that 99% of the time, you are either doing homework or avoiding it. That's a bad idea. When you sit down to work, work. If you can't concentrate where you are, go somewhere else. Rotate homework (one class for thirty minutes, then the next, then the next, then back to the first) so that you can work longer without hurting your concentration. Being efficient when you DO work on schoolwork is the most important way to maintain a life for yourself.

[dontblink182]

I work, go to school and have an active social life. I make time to go to the gym, do laundry, cook food, talk to friends ect... It's not easy, and I'm not perfect but I just try to make it a routine... I have to be awake at 4:00am for work, so maybe that has something to do with it haha I know I have to get things done before I go to work or to school... I hate feeling like I'm not ready for anything so I try to do as much as possible in one day... I learned time management kind of young because I worked at a horse barn and I had to have all the horses turned out, fed, and ready to be ridden... So I set alarms for EVERYTHING. I keep a schedule as well so I know what I HAVE to get done for the day and anything else I tend to just do between the more important things...

 

 

The ONLY thing I have trouble with is eating well... I kind of stick to food like ramen... But tonight I know I have some fresh tuna steaks that need to be cooked and I have the time to cook them... At least once a week I make a meal that will last me a few days... Last week was pasta with meatballs... This week I'll have the tuna and some chicken fajitas...

 

 

Try not to overwhelm yourself with too much all at once... also don't get discouraged when you don't get anything done... Everything comes around and you'll fall into your own routine! Hope that helps, good luck!

[laninaperdida]

I didn't manage them all all that same time, but I consistently managed to do most of them.

I was always a clean student.

The one thing I did slack on was my health.

If I had to choose between a social even & sleeping (or studying) I rarely chose sleeping, lol.

If I had to choose between money for food & money for nails well... I always looked good, lol.

Ended up losing a lot of weight.

[blueidealist24]

I had trouble being clean while I was a student, but I've always been messy and generally cleaning is my last priority. As for health, that was different. I managed to keep up a consistent gym routine while still maintaining good grades and a social life. I don't really have much advice for you - I'm not the most organized person ever, and I don't really care.. if you don't do your laundry sometimes, the world won't end. I could not sit at home and clean or something if there was some sort of party going on.

[LightAndDark]

I don't see why not. You can multitask. Plus housekeeping chores only take up what, an hour of your time? Well an hour of my time at most.

[Carnatic]

I never had this issue, although my house would have appeared scruffy to most people, with some things going unwashed for a while there was always food in the fridge, clean crockery and cutlery and clean clothes to wear. Ultimately my studies never took more than 8 hours a day and the majority of the population are able to keep on top of their chores while working a full-time job. I think the problem with students is that you have to manage your own time so it's easy to slack off a bit at the start of term and then by the time courseworks are due and you have exams to revise you you suddenly realise you have to pull 12 hour days.

 

I think you might be worrying too much about certain things too, turning routine parts of your life such as exercise and talking to loved ones into a daily to-do list. Cooking healthy food need take no longer than cooking unhealthy food (less sometimes, I can chop vegetables, cook a stir-fry, eat it and wash up all in the space of 15 minutes), I'm not sure if it's a healthy relationship with someone, family, friends s/o etc if you feel that you have to have a conversation with them once a day, even if you want to talk to them a lot, you can still talk to them as and when you have time rather than turning it into a chore. As for exercise, most students don't have cars so walk everywhere, if you're walking to and from university or into town and eating relatively healthy you shouldn't need any further exercise.

 

As for once you start work, it really depends on what you do and what the pressures are on you. I've had a few jobs all placing different demands on me. I used to be an urban design consultant, and that kind of work it is difficult to not take home with you, you are under pressure to meet deadlines and worry about tomorrow's work even once you've come home. Unfortunately a lot of jobs are like that nowadays. I quit and have worked in a few more 'menial' roles, such as being a proof-reader a dogsbody in a garden centre and a call-centre operative. Those jobs you can switch off from when you go home, although you may still find yourself thinking about your job performance if you're not performing well. Now I'm self-employed and my hobby has become my profession, I'm a photographer. The work-life balance goes out the window because even when I'm taking photos in an amateur capacity, I'm still thinking, 'this could be good practice with a new piece of equipment, or a new technique, or could boost my portfolio or be used as part of an advertising campaign, or be sold as stock'