Can You Have It All?

I thought I could. Between having a buzzing social life, doing all the extra-curricular activities I could fit into a week and university, I was really living the dream; living in a dream. And now I’m paying for it.

I’m the type of person who loves doing so many things. In secondary school, I successfully balanced everything I enjoyed doing whilst coming out with A’s and above. However, studying a university degree – a university degree at Warwick – and a university degree so diversified and specialist as PPE, that was never going to work for me. Now I’m not saying studying PPE at Warwick means you’ll have no time for anything else, because that’s simply and completely untrue. But between Improv, Musical Improv, Netball, Basketball, Hip Hop classes, Volleyball, Salsa, Women’s Bible Study, Afrofest, practising my instruments, other society events, outings with friends and just generally hanging out with friends on campus and in accommodations, I hardly had time for my degree – hardly made time for my degree.

The beauty of university is that there is so much to do and so many people to meet, but that means it’s loaded with distractions around every corner. Now as I prepare for the upcoming exams, I really feel the growing expanse of work I’ve created for myself. In trying to have it all, I truly gave myself more than I could handle – falling behind with the main reason that I’m here in the first place. If I’ve learned from anything from my first year at uni (which is almost over, it goes so quickly!) is that you need to prioritise and specialise in things you really like as well as try new things. Along with this, make the most of your time. Like on free afternoons when you feel like you have nothing to do, just do a little bit of catching up, a little bit of revision, and maybe sit down to do some practice questions. These are the things that I wish I had done because every moment of procrastination and intentionally choosing to put off work builds up in the long term; your future you will thank you for making things a little bit easier.

So can you have it all? I don’t think so, as I have learnt in my experience. But I do think you can have a few very very good things when you don’t spread yourself so thin – including good university grades! But adjusting is part of the process, and the only way from here is up if the work is put in. Now the rest of term 3 awaits!