November 2008 - Student life balance

With mid-terms behind you, you now have a sense of what university life entails. Now is the perfect time to examine your schedule, set clear goals and work on maintaining a healthy and balanced lifestyle. A well-rounded lifestyle involves balancing course work with the rest of your activities, being active and maintaining a healthy diet. A comprehensive schedule leads to a rich student experience. UOIT offers students a wide range of activities to go alongside the academic curriculum studied in class. Research indicates that students involved in co-curricular activities experience an increase in academic success because they learn to better manage their time, offer an opportunity to pursue new interests, and increase awareness of global and community citizenship. A well-balanced student experiences greater successes and outcomes.

Do you feel that you do not have time for any extra curricular activities, let alone time to eat healthy or exercise?

The key to achieving and maintaining a balanced student lifestyle starts with time management. Time management can be challenge, as there are only so many hours in a day. The key to overcoming this challenge is to establish a personal time management strategy that works for you. Maintaining a balanced schedule requires you to manage your time effectively and efficiently.

Developing a balanced studentlife

Health and nutrition on campus
Top ten tips for eating more vegetables and fruit
Canada Food Guide
Canada Physical Activity Guide

• Are you a student, employee, parent, partner, sibling, child; and
• List what is important to you in all aspects of your life.

• Ensure that goals are realistic and achievable; and
• Rank your goals and set level of urgency - high/low.

• Use your student handbook;
• Mark off class times for each course;
• Write down all important course dates (you might also want to include how much the assignment or test is worth);
• Include social, family and work commitments;
• Take account of everything that you need to do even things that are often taken for granted (laundry, grocery shopping);
• Block off time to study and include which course/assignment you intend to work on;
• Don't forget to schedule in personal time, leave space for unscheduled things that may come up; and
• Identify how much time you need for each activity.

• Use your student handbook to track what you need to do and when you are doing it; and
  
• Make adjustments as required.