By: Jake Wilson<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For students at SUNY Cortland, the second week of May is often filled with stress and anxiety as they face the final obstacle standing between them and summer vacation: Finals Week<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For varsity athletes, the challenge is much greater. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Athletes must balance studying for exams with practices, lifts and games. While most students are able to focus entirely on academics, athletes are forced to divvy up their time between academics and sports. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy sophomore year, I was taking organic chemistry two,\u201d said Chelsey Weber, a senior on the women\u2019s lacrosse team. \u201cWe made it to the NCAA Tournament. That was the hardest class for me, and I had to take the final two days early because I had to leave for this game. And so I didn\u2019t fit in any time for studying because I had other finals to take.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
To get a better understanding of how varsity athletes manage this balancing act, I spoke with athletes from various sports at SUNY Cortland. The athletes I interviewed include Weber, Aaron Coston, a senior on the men\u2019s basketball team; Kaitlyn Diem, a senior on both the women\u2019s soccer and hockey teams, Isaiah Brunache, a senior on the men\u2019s track and field team and Alexa Caron, a junior on the women\u2019s lacrosse team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What does a typical day during finals week look like for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA typical day in finals week and in like normal school is: I will wake up and usually my classes start around 10-10:20, so I\u2019ll wake up and I\u2019ll head to Bowers,\u201d said Weber. “And I\u2019ll study for about 2 and a half to 3 hours, do some homework right before class and then go to class, and then I\u2019ll go to lift and practice, eat dinner and then go to bed.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n How does your workload during finals week compare to a regular in-season week?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The athletes described how their workloads became more intense during finals week, especially when travelling for games is involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHonestly, it is a lot more, especially because it is harder to find a quiet place to study because if I\u2019m travelling on the bus there\u2019s always music playing, which is great,\u201d said Weber. “But it\u2019s just a little bit harder to study.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brunache explained how time management and preparation became even more important during finals week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019d say in terms of training wise, training doesn\u2019t really change much. But in terms of studying wise, it\u2019s just about time management,\u201d said Brunache. \u201cI try to make sure I\u2019m prepared going into finals week so that I can just kind of use those days as brushing up and reviewing. Because I know that I\u2019m going to have to, I still have to go to practice everyday. So for me it\u2019s just making sure that leading up to finals week I feel prepared so that I\u2019m not stressing during finals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How does travelling for games impact your ability to prepare for finals?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Because travelling for games takes up so much time for athletes, many described either finding ways to do their work on the bus or trying to get as much work done as possible before they had to travel for their games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTravel is something that\u2019s hard with studying and trying to do different projects,\u201d said Diem. “You definitely have to learn how to either do homework on the bus or prioritize your time in a way that you don\u2019t need to do it on the bus.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Coston described how travel makes finals week \u201csuper difficult, but you just have to find a way to manage your time correctly. So bus rides are usually around like 2 hours or 2 hours 30 minutes. So within that bus ride, I try to get as much work done as I can, which is also hard because of connection problems and issues like that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n What academic support systems are available to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Many of the athletes shouted out various support systems, including the Writing Center, their team\u2019s advisor, and Supplemental Instruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe have our team advisor, Kathleen Burke, she\u2019s amazing,\u201d said Coston. \u201cSo if we have any troubles we always text her, and she always reaches out to make sure we\u2019re okay. If we have any problems in school and stuff, she\u2019s the first one to know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Weber mentioned how she \u201cutilized the student instruction, like the SI sessions, and I have utilized the pure tutoring in the writing center.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Caron said how they \u201calso have study halls. \u201cSo we need to go to Park Center or the Library for a certain amount of time during the week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By: Jake Wilson For students at SUNY Cortland, the second week of May is often filled with stress and anxiety as they face the final obstacle standing between them and summer vacation: Finals Week For varsity athletes, the challenge is much greater. Athletes must balance studying for exams with practices, lifts and games. While most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":496,"featured_media":10532,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","entry"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2026\/05\/20231211-D48765-Studying-z-2-600x400.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2026\/05\/20231211-D48765-Studying-z-2-600x600.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"jake.wilson","author_link":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/author\/jake-wilson\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/496"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}