Balancing your Schedule as a High Schooler

Amanda Dybal
Staff Writer

               As a high schooler, your schedule may be rigorous. With final exams, winter break, sports, and other extracurricular activities, time is hard to manage. For many students, it’s crunch time. Senior Anna Credle is overbooked with club and high school gymnastics, Key Club, National Honor Society, and to top it all off, college applications. Already studying for her calculus exam, she has no extra free time these days. “I have to use a lot of time management in order to fit school and athletics into my schedule,” she says.  
                 According to Nationwide Children’s Hospital, high school students should get between nine to nine and a half hours of sleep. The average amount of sleep teenagers get are between seven to seven and a half hours of sleep. Sophomore Michael Davis explains that all he wants to do over winter break is catch up on his sleep.  Academics make it hard for teenagers to get enough sleep. A study founded by the National Sleep Foundation states that during a test they had performed, only 15% of teens get the amount of sleep they need. With school starting at 7:25 in the morning, most students have to wake up around six in the morning, and getting the necessary nine hours of sleep would mean going to bed at nine at night. This is hard to do with tons of homework and extracurricular activities.  

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           With only three weeks before the semester ends, students are starting to study to bring up their grades before final exams start.  Many will put off studying until after break and then cram. Senior Sunday Poliachik is on both the varsity volleyball and softball teams at Apex High, serves as a student leader for the fellowship of student athletes (FCA), is the vice president of the National Honor Society, is a member of the National Technical Honor Society, and participates in Young Life and other activities through her church. Along with all of that, she is an editor in yearbook and is an active member of the Cougar Crazies. When I asked her if she had any free time, her response was, “No, I don’t have free time. What’s free time? Basically, if I have even a second of free time, it is spent eating or sleeping, unless I’m procrastinating, then I take out the sleeping part.” Trying to keep up with everything, she manages everything using a planner and reminders on her phone. “I’m going to go who knows where next year; that’s hard to imagine in the midst of my busy schedule. I want to make sure to slow down and appreciate this year,” Poliachik explains. High school is a crazy time, especially as a senior.
         College applications can be overwhelming; after school activities are time-consuming. With everything going on in high school, the important things like sleep get pushed aside. This can be unhealthy. “Many teens suffer from treatable sleep disorders, such as narcolepsy insomnia, restless sleep syndrome, or sleep apnea,” says the National Sleep Foundation. Consequences of not enough sleep can, “Limit your ability to learn, listen, concentrate and solve problems. You may even forget important information like names, numbers, your homework or a date with a special person in your life.” Time management is necessary in order to keep up with everything and still have time to yourself.