Balancing Academics and Sports

By Dave Berry

Many students fear taking a science program because of the heavy demand of scheduled activities – specifically time spent in the labs. While I don’t deny that labs do take away from the flexibility in a student schedule, I would like to emphasize that it is perfectly possible to be a fully committed athlete and to complete a science degree in a reasonable timeframe. The key requirement is to be personally well organized.

Many of our top-performing athletes who have completed a BSc in a laboratory-based discipline have succeeded because they work to a very regular schedule. It probably goes hand-in-hand with being used to a regular training program for their chosen sport. The same rigour of the schedule is also applied to the academic part of their life.

I would certainly encourage a student to engage in something other than only one’s academic discipline. Life at university is all about balance – which of course implies that the academics cannot be too little or too much!

Dave Berry, Department of Chemistry, University of Victoria, and 3M National Teaching Fellow.

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