Engineering AND a Social Life???

I am here today to answer this burning question of how it is possible to have a social life when you could be studying for that next physics or chemistry exam. Maybe there is a math practice test you could be taking or looking over your Econ notes.

These were all thoughts that I struggled with during my freshman year. I struggled to allow myself to have fun because in the back of my mind I had a list of things I could have been doing that could have helped to get a better grade.

While studying is very important and vital in such a rigorous major, there IS such a thing as too much studying!! Both you and your mind need a break every once in a while!

The best thing to do is to find a balance. This balance is different for every person because every person studies differently. So you have to create a schedule that works for you.

For me, I would look ahead at the next week and figure out what meetings I had on the weekdays and what events I would want to go to the next weekend such as a football game. I would then study based off of that. An example would have been getting a head start on one assignment one night because I knew that I would be attending WEP Wednesday the next and wouldn’t have time for it. Yes, there were some late nights, but thinking about having fun and being able to stay involved was worth it because then during the fun times you could just relax and enjoy yourself.

My tips for you are these:

• Get Involved right away
• Pick two or three things that you might be interested in and go for it! If you find later that it’s too much and you are too busy then you can always give less time to that activity
• Friday nights are for FUN
• You have had a long week. By the time Friday rolls around you don’t want to do any more school work. So don’t! Use this as your mental break time. Go to the creamery or have a game night with your friends. Do something that doesn’t involve school work for the night and then hit the books again on Saturday.
• Football Weekends can be the exception
• Sometimes in order to have fun and balance all the homework on a Football weekend you have to do some work on Friday night. Trust me you won’t regret it. As they say, WE ARE a football town.
• Always do what’s right for you
• If you are struggling in a subject or have a lot of homework that needs to get done, don’t be afraid to devote more time to it. Gaining an education is your #1 priority here at Penn State and everything else is just an extra. Yes, you need to let yourself relax and have some fun but do it based on what you feel. Don’t be afraid to say you can’t go to a meeting or turn a friend down who wants you to hang out with them.

In the end, it is possible to have a social life and successfully be an engineer. It might take some time to figure out how much time you can devote to a social life but that’s all part of the process. 

Melanie Santo is a junior majoring in Chemical Engineering, and is a Mentor for WEPO'16!