How to Balance School and Extracurriculars

In 2021, statistics have proven that 49.1% of high school students participate in a club or sports and that more than 80% do extracurricular activities outside school. For those people, it doesn’t leave much time to do school work or to finish anything they need for school. Sometimes this results in having to end some of their extracurricular activities. In this reading, two Pahrump Valley High School students and one staff member tell their sides of their high school versus extracurriculars.

Chloe Sitter-Jones, a senior at Pahrump Valley High School, participates in the high school’s tennis team and does rodeo outside of school. Sitter-Jones says that her future motivates her to show up to school and her extracurriculars every day, “I am someone that is really focused on my future and attempting to create a good life for myself. I have a huge fear of failure, so understanding that putting an effort in now will limit that possibility of failure really helps.” This quote from Sitter-Jones answers the question as to why her future keeps her motivated to continue showing up for her extracurriculars and school. Sitter-Jones states that she is a huge procrastinator and that makes her struggle a lot in school, “I really struggle with the workload, especially with being in dual enrollment. I am a huge procrastinator, so when you pair that with the amount of work that college and high school give me, it becomes a lot to balance.” This shows how Sitter-Jones struggles with the workload coming from high school and college. She says that it is hard to balance. This answers the question of struggle-some things that come with school. 

 Wolfe Beckley, also a senior at Pahrump Valley High School, participates in student council and robotics primarily. Like Sitter-Jones, Beckley is a procrastinator. He says that is his biggest challenge in school. Beckley answered the question of what are something’s he struggles with in extracurriculars, “I think the hard part is sometimes just remembering why I want to do what I do.”  This quote from Beckley shows that he sometimes forgets to recognize why he is doing what he does. When he does realize this it provides him with a ton of motivation. Another thing I asked Beckley is if he ever felt like he needed to stop an extracurricular to focus more on school. “I stopped wrestling because I felt the need to focus on a lot of other extracurriculars I was doing my junior year. I also admittedly stopped doing a decent amount of the extracurriculars I was doing last year due to the need to focus on college applications and my health.” This answer from Beckley proves that sometimes it is okay to end an extracurricular to focus on more important things.

Mike Colucci is the PVHS weights teacher.  Colucci also had extracurriculars when he was in high school saying, “As a student-athlete, I always tried to do my best to create and follow a schedule that allowed me time for practice, homework/studying, hitting the gym hard outside of school/practice, meal prepping, doing household chores, working a summer job spending time with family/friends, and getting eight hours of sleep each night. Learning to prioritize my schedule, eliminate distractions, and not procrastinate as a student-athlete helped me create healthy habits in college and into my professional and personal life as an adult.” This quote from Colucci shows what kind of healthy habits he created for himself and shows that it gets a lot easier to balance things with a set schedule. Colucci also says that it is easier to be organized by being able to see everything laid out in front of you. Along with these extracurriculars comes why Colucci did them as he said, “I chose to compete in athletics in school largely because it was a culture in my immediate and extended family, as well as in the families of my close friends growing up. I chose to coach because of the positive influence that many of my coaches had on me as an athlete. I had a desire after high school to provide similar influences and experiences for the next generation of PVHS student Athletes.” This overall gives a lot of detail about the motivation Colucci got as a high school student-athlete and that he intends to mirror in this next group of PVHS student-athletes.

Everything considered, all three of these interviews prove that to keep up with school and extracurriculars you have to make time and always show up. Something else that will always help is to not procrastinate. Procrastinating will only make a bigger workload for yourself, or just digging a hole that will just get deeper and deeper. A good thing to do to keep up with extracurriculars is to start on top and stay on top of everything. Another thing is to not be afraid to ask for help or stop an extracurricular.