Taking Care of Busy-ness

By Anand Venigalla

Features Editor

Students often say they are busy bees, but what is it that makes them buzz, and how do they handle the work?

Each person has a different way to cope with stress. With balancing school, jobs, extracurriculars or fun side projects and hobbies, it can be a circus act attempting to juggle all of these along with family, a social life, and relationships.

For Ashley Herkommer, a junior digital art and design student, it’s exhausting. “[Being] busy can mean a lot of things for me, depending on the person [I’m talking to]. Usually I’m always working or I’m sleeping because I’m tired from work,” she said.

“For me busy is mainly schoolwork and a job, because I prefer to be around people. I’m not gonna lie about being busy unless I am,” Paris Romano, a sophomore digital art and design major, said. He has a part-time job on campus in the admissions office. “That’s a good time to get work done,” he added.

Kelly-Ann Rivera, a senior film major, juggles work and school. However, due to a temporary injury, she is less busy than she was before. “I wish I were more busy whenever I feel lazy and don’t want to do anything, [but] there are times where I can sit, lie down and not have anything to do,” she said. School work comes first for Rivera. “Sometimes I would have to cancel plans to do schoolwork,” she said.

Rachel Portnoy, a junior education major, has a full student life that involves academics, socializing and club and campus involvement. “I have a lot of assignments and homework to do and I have to study for a lot of tests and a lot of events to attend,” Portnoy said. Her key to success is organization. “I find that I’m really good at handling all the responsibilities using my planner,” she said.

Portnoy makes time to socialize with her friends and get her things done by scheduling her plans. “I try not to make too many excuses,” she said.

Not every student manages their busy lives as well as others. For some like Brianna LiCausi, a senior health and physical education major, the workload can be overwhelming. “When I’m busy, I’ve overpacked my schedule to the point where my brain wants to explode,” LiCausi said. “I am stressed all the time, especially as a college student, because when I get more stressed I just jam pack events together so I don’t worry about the time I don’t have, which piles on each other,” she said.

LiCausi wants to be less busy, but she also feels a need for a “jam-packed” life in order to feel engaged and active. “If I was less busy in my life I think I’d be a little more stress-free, probably a little bored because stress makes my life crazy and kind of adventurous. I feel like I wouldn’t have so much anxiety all the time,” she said. LiCausi’s schedule includes work, school, sorority life, looking out for her friends and roommate, club memberships, babysitting, socializing and “embarrassing [herself] in Hillwood.”

Being busy can have a varied impact on students’ lives, but there is a thread that connects many students: a constant striving to manage it all.