Finding Balance Between Social and Academic Lives

It is widely believed that social and academic lives are two very important parts of university/college life that cannot be separated one from another. As Wayt claims, human relations in institutions show strong impact on one’s decision to persist in the university/college and ultimately go on with their studies towards degree attainment. Wayt also emphasizes that 68,6% of students who are normally active in social activities of university/college are more successful in academic life than others. According to studies in the University of Nebraska, major part of students (45.8%) received emotional support from friends at college, while only 21,4% of students obtained it from their family. Moreover, Tinto’s theory reveals that informal interactions with other students may have a crucial role to born an integration in academic performance.

Reasons of Balancing Social and Academic Lives

Being engaged in social events stands as a fundamental aspect of building new and supportive social network, acquire the positive transition to college life and have an instrumental assistance. Mostly well-being and academic success are experienced on those individuals who actively pursue social interactions. Furthermore, Cohen , Sherrod and Clark claim that belonging to social network helps to ease the stress in the university/college life.

Roberts and Clifton and Sirgy et al conducted a research on the importance of studying students’ perception of the quality of university/college life. According to Sirgy, quality of college life is defined as the level of satisfaction that university students obtain with the contribution of both social and academic impacts during college years. Likewise, one of the most crucial aspects of university life that Roberts and Clifton  indicated is the relationship that students build during their higher education experience. In addition, experiencing elevated levels of fear and negative evaluation that lead to social anxiety can have a major impact on sequence of fails during academic performances and prioritizing social life over academic life may also lead to the same conclusion.

Possible Solutions to Balance Social and Academic Lives

Socially anxious students tend to miss out on learning process by avoiding interaction with others in the classroom. Moreover, given academic information may not be accepted by students due to dividing focus on their anxieties, whereas being interactive boosts efficiency and helps to modify communication with teacher and groupmates. To clarify, the difficulty level of academic material increase in undergraduate programmes and students face anxiousness when they are encouraged to get peer or tutor support; interactions in classes increase among confident students. Thus, students should avoid conflicts and fears by increasing positive interactions with others and self-confidence. Moreover, Steptoesuggests that enrolling in non-physical, academic clubs such as mathematics club, biology club and innovative start-up clubs help to develop both social and academic performances at the same time. In addition, losing negative criticism during tutor and student interaction and collaboration of academic counsellors and students can help to get rid of students feeling ashamed which directly leads to positive results in foreseeable future.

Conclusion

The current study emphasizes on the importance of balancing social and academic lives and suggests several ways to reach both academic success and supportive social network.

References

• Social anxiety in higher education | The Psychologist (2009). Bps.org.uk. 
• Campbell, C.G., Bierman, K.L. and Molenaar, P.C.M. (2015). Individual Day-to-Day Process of Social Anxiety in Vulnerable College Students. Applied Developmental Science, 20 (1), 1–15. 
• Time Management: Balancing Academics, Social Life, and Extracurricular Activities - World Education Services (2017). World Education Services. 
• Learning To Balance Academics And A Social Life (2017). SIU Credit Union. 
• 5 Ways To Balance School And Social Life As A University Student (2018). Harvard Blockchain Lab. 
• Educational Administration: Theses, Dissertations, and Student Research | Educational Administration, Department of | University of Nebraska - Lincoln (no date). digitalcommons.unl.edu.