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Joshua
Student
Suwanee, Georgia
1
Question
Updated
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Did I make the right decision to go for this college major? If I did, how could I find the balance between work and my personal life?
I'm a rising college freshman with a passion for serving/giving back to others, which is why I've decided to study Biomedical Engineering on the pre-med track. I've always liked technology too, so I'm not sure if I chose the right major or if I can be at the intersection of healthcare and tech. If this is the right path for me, seeing how these academic subjects require a lot of hard work, how can I find the balance between the work and my personal life outside of school?
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1 answer
Ailanis Wiebe
Nurse by trade, in executive healthcare leadership.
2
Answers
Castro Valley, California
Updated
Ailanis’s Answer
Kudos to you! Yes you have chosen two very distinguished academic journeys that require a unique juggle to accomplish without losing oneself. To manage all of this and your personal life, it's a matter of setting priorities, boundaries and schedules.
Schoolwork- getting the assignments done as soon as the course matter reviewed is complete. Do not delay on your assignments and studies- they snowball if you do, increasing stress load and setting too many up for failure in the end. Preventable.
Choices - the wonderful thing about having several passions that may intersect for you as your studies unfold, is that you can always shift the more you learn. Aka: you may discover that one area drives your passion much more than the other. Know that it's ok to shift or pivot if you decide one is a better fit for you than the other. The key right now is that you do not have to chose. Premed is obviously PRE med school. So you have time to digest, learn and grow and see where the passion lies the more you learn.
Personal life- what matters to you outside of academics? What are the things that sooth your stresses? What are the things or actions that feed your soul? aka: Stress relief might be playing a sport, journalling, painting, running, playing a sport, shooting hoops etc. Feeding the soul: what lights you up? What do you Love to do and feel so happy/joy while doing it? This too can be painting, writing, hiking in or being in nature, hobbies, socializing-maybe it's that weekly dinner/club/sports game with friends and so on. There's no wrong answers to these things and everyone is different. So make time for it. Make time for you! So schedule yourself in.
Boundaries - once you sort these things out, then learn to say no. Hold fast your personal time. Your success becomes where you focus your attention. What we think we create. We are the losers in our own journey when we create or allow excuses to not do something that's important to us, and it's a slippery slope.
FYI: Habit stacking is a good practice to get into: e.g. You have an assignment that you need to get done, but you're really wanting to just go shoot hoops and ignore it: reward yourself with shooting hoops for a set amount of time when the assignment is done. Allowing oneself rewards for accomplishing items on the to do list, helps us accomplish what we need to do so not to have it hanging over our heads, AND still get to do something fun as a result. It helps to balance the to dos and the school-personal-life balance. Another example can we making it a weekly habit stack: you have a favorite coffee bar you love to go to on Saturday mornings: So you decide to study for an hour or two (be specific) prior, then go to the coffee bar and get your favorite brew and enjoy the time there before setting your sights on the next tasks of the day.
Schoolwork- getting the assignments done as soon as the course matter reviewed is complete. Do not delay on your assignments and studies- they snowball if you do, increasing stress load and setting too many up for failure in the end. Preventable.
Choices - the wonderful thing about having several passions that may intersect for you as your studies unfold, is that you can always shift the more you learn. Aka: you may discover that one area drives your passion much more than the other. Know that it's ok to shift or pivot if you decide one is a better fit for you than the other. The key right now is that you do not have to chose. Premed is obviously PRE med school. So you have time to digest, learn and grow and see where the passion lies the more you learn.
Personal life- what matters to you outside of academics? What are the things that sooth your stresses? What are the things or actions that feed your soul? aka: Stress relief might be playing a sport, journalling, painting, running, playing a sport, shooting hoops etc. Feeding the soul: what lights you up? What do you Love to do and feel so happy/joy while doing it? This too can be painting, writing, hiking in or being in nature, hobbies, socializing-maybe it's that weekly dinner/club/sports game with friends and so on. There's no wrong answers to these things and everyone is different. So make time for it. Make time for you! So schedule yourself in.
Boundaries - once you sort these things out, then learn to say no. Hold fast your personal time. Your success becomes where you focus your attention. What we think we create. We are the losers in our own journey when we create or allow excuses to not do something that's important to us, and it's a slippery slope.
FYI: Habit stacking is a good practice to get into: e.g. You have an assignment that you need to get done, but you're really wanting to just go shoot hoops and ignore it: reward yourself with shooting hoops for a set amount of time when the assignment is done. Allowing oneself rewards for accomplishing items on the to do list, helps us accomplish what we need to do so not to have it hanging over our heads, AND still get to do something fun as a result. It helps to balance the to dos and the school-personal-life balance. Another example can we making it a weekly habit stack: you have a favorite coffee bar you love to go to on Saturday mornings: So you decide to study for an hour or two (be specific) prior, then go to the coffee bar and get your favorite brew and enjoy the time there before setting your sights on the next tasks of the day.