Despite what the millennial stereotype suggests, students these days are the opposite of lazy.  Students have to juggle school, clubs, homework, spending time with friends and family, all while trying to get enough sleep to stay healthy. This is very hard to do, especially with only 24 hours in a day, and school taking up a good chunk of that time.

Juggling all these activities can get very stressful, especially if you consider that these students are still kids and have to deal with everything that’s thrown at them.

Junior Emily Peterson shared her struggle with it, mentioning that “it’s a lot” because she “doesn’t get enough sleep”.

She, like other athletes, sometimes have to do their homework throughout the school day to get the work turned in on time.

“Sometimes I would have to do my homework on the bus, or in my classes throughout the day,” Peterson shared . Athletes are encouraged to prioritize their sport over school, purely to be the best they can be. This statement contradicts itself because they have to have certain grades to even be able to play. It’s definitely not fair to the students involved in multiple extracurricular activities.

Sophomore Sarah Dominick sets priorities. “School comes first, even though you wanna put your sport first and you wanna be best at that, you need to make school your number one priority,” Dominick said.

School is always going to be more important in the long run, even if sports seem like the most important thing in the world at the moment.

No matter what is going on, or how many activities a student has to juggle, they have to remember that it is all going to even out at some point. Focus on schoolwork, even if that means putting sports to the side momentarily. School is always going to be a stressor in teens’ lives, but students just have to find ways to cope with everything they have going on and make it work.

There are many ways you can manage school and sports, however. Teens are known for procrastinating, it’s something everyone is guilty of at one point or another. However, student athletes cannot afford to procrastinate. They have to stay organized, manage their time wisely and take advantage of every free moment they get to work on schoolwork. They can even take advantage of school resources, such as tutors and the Student Center. Instead of using their free period or lunch to goof off, they can go to the Student Center to get work done instead. Overall being a student is difficult, but having sports on top of it can seem nearly impossible, yet many students at our school defy the impossible and manage to excel as students.