Little league baseball, marching band, drama club, piano lessons, dance classes, speech team and yearbook staff. Activities such as those mark the life of many American students younger than 18. But upon arriving at college, those students often receive a wake-up call.
They discover that keeping a schedule jammed with activities is nearly impossible at the college level because of tougher academic demands. Stressed and overwhelmed from juggling schoolwork with the responsibility of organizational membership, many students eventually give up and disengage from participation in extracurricular activities.
HOME LIFE
Stephen Ross, a psychologist at Clinical and Forensic Psychological Services in Fort Wayne and a member of the Indiana Psychological Association, said some of his pre-college-age clients usually come from affluent families and are pushed by their parents to participate in various organizations.
Their schedules are carefully coordinated, Ross said. For example, after school, the student heads to track practice at 3:30 p.m., has a quick snack at 4 p.m., then rushes to a trumpet lesson at 4:15 p.m. Next the student hurries off to soccer practice at 5 p.m., gets home by 6 p.m., then does homework for the rest of the night.
"I see quite a few high-achieving children," said Ajanta Goswami, a child psychiatrist for Cardinal Health Services Child Psychiatry. "They're involved in so many activities, and they feel they have to do well. As a result, they don't have a lot of energy."
Goswami said the parents of those children, mostly high-schoolers, aren't directly pressuring their kids to keep a busy schedule, but when Goswami questions them about their own lives they talk about the community organizations they're involved in. Goswami said their children see their parents getting involved so they feel they must also.
"They see that as a way of life," she said.
REALITY SINKS IN
But once the busy student reaches college, he or she soon discovers that a chaotic lifestyle is not as easily accomplished. Academic rigors are tougher than in high school, and adding activities makes keeping a balanced schedule more difficult.
Ross said he has seen the effects of the hectic lifestyle in several of the college students he treats.
One of his patients, a freshman at Indiana University in Bloomington, dropped out of school and moved back home because she felt so overwhelmed by the change in lifestyle, Ross said.
"These kids operate under a lot of structure at home, so when they get to college, they don't have that structure," Ross said. "They're just too tired and don't want to get involved."
John Stachula, a staff therapist at Ball State's Counseling Services, said many patients still feel pressured to keep up the busy schedules they had in high school. They get involved in groups related to their major and load themselves down with classes, he said. Usually they get stressed out.
"It's a struggle for a lot of students," Stachula said.
Eventually the struggle leads to the over-scheduled student dropping out of extracurricular activities.
SOLVING THE PROBLEM
College students need to realize it's OK to say no to an activity and to prioritize their lives so they can include the activities they want to, Stachula said.
"People come to college feeling like they need to know exactly what they need to do," Stachula said. "They don't take the time for self-exploration."
The problem of students feeling obligated to be heavily involved would also be solved more easily if the situation were addressed earlier, Goswami said. Some parents, she said, actually feel guilty if they don't require their children to participate in multiple activities, as if they somehow denied their kids special opportunities.
The key, Goswami said, is to let each child do what he or she wants, making participation the child's decision and not the parents'. This way, when the student tastes independence for the first time at college, he or she will be able to handle newfound responsibilities without feeling overly anxious.
"When we try to put the same expectations on all children, that's when we fail them," she said.
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