While finals may be taking some student-athletes by surprise, the majority of the members of the track and field team have been making sure to prepare early.
Lauren Mills, a distance runner, is graduating this semester. Although she only has two finals, in the past she has usually had about four, which made her aware of what her schedule was going to look like toward the end.
“It just takes a lot of planning ahead to know what days you will have longer practices, so you’ll know when you have the most time to study,” Mills said. “Just takes knowing how much time you will have in advance and being conscious of that.”
Mills said her finals don’t necessarily make her practice schedule harder to balance with studying, but she does spend more time worrying.
“It adds stress, but it’s not any different because we have to be pretty good at time management, anyways,” Mills said. “Just a little bit more stressful because it matters more.”
Nicole Rietz, a junior, agrees with Mills and said how she organizes her schedule is equally important to how much studying she actually gets done. She has three finals and has known what her priorities are from the beginning.
“It’s all about planning and organizing your time,” Rietz said. “Time management is really the key to doing well on finals when you’re traveling and practicing.”
A few of the girls on the team will be traveling to Iowa this weekend, while the entire team will travel to Idaho the following week. Rietz said she has already gotten a head start on her studying, but with all the extra travel, she has to make sure she leaves nothing behind.
“I already started filling out study guides for the one [final] next week,” Rietz said. “I’m bringing all my study guides I need to fill out and all my books. I’m trying to break it down piece by piece so it doesn’t feel so overwhelming when the day actually comes.”
Mills feels lucky she only has two finals to study for and mentioned it can be a pain to drag around all her school work and books. She said focusing on both studying and competing is more difficult when the team isn’t at home.
“When you travel you’re really trying to embrace your sport, so it’s easier when you’re here to think about school,” Mills said. “When you’re there you … like to focus more on the race or the game or whatever you’re doing. It takes up a lot of your mental energy.”
Rietz said sometimes she needs to force herself to just sit in her hotel room to get her work done.
“We just really have to be super organized,” Rietz said. “Really plan out our days and make sure we get everything done.”
All the girls on the team are supportive of each other when one person needs to break away from the group to take time to study, and sometimes they even all come together to have study sessions.
“If we go to another university, we’ll find their library and sit down for like three or four hours,” Rietz said. “We all hold each other accountable and always make each other do homework.”
Rietz said her most difficult final will be medical terminology because it will be a lot of memorization. However, since she has known from the beginning what she was going to have to do, her early preparation is keeping her head up.
“It’s always been on my mind all semester that we have finals during that time, so I’ve been studying earlier,” Rietz said.
All the book work has already paid off as both Rietz and Mills were named to the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation All-Academic Team.
@kbrenneisen