Climbing Through School

As school starts up again in the States, many students may feel the stress of balancing school with climbing. Balancing life with work is always a challenge, but climbing is slightly different in that there’s more of a time commitment involved. For example, for most people, it’s not really worthwhile to climb for 5 minutes a day; for most people, it’s impossible to get to a crag, send, and come back in one hour. A worthwhile (a subjective term, I know) climbing session is longer than an average workout session, and outdoor climbing is often slower and farther away than gym climbing. I can’t claim that I had a perfect climbing career during high school and college, but I was always among the strongest climbers of my peers and among the highest ranking students at my schools. For those student climbers out there, here are some things that helped me balance academics and school in my day:

1. Dedicated Days: No matter what kind of academic weapon you are, nobody can study all day every day. Certainly, I cannot. Choose one day a week where you are booked for climbing. Treat it like a class and commit to that time…otherwise, you may be stuck in limbo, unable to decide when to make time for climbing. If possible, shoot for two days! If you’re on the fence, add a flex day where you go if you can.
2. Make Plans: Not everybody is like me, but personally, once I make plans with someone else, there is hardly anything that could make me bail on those plans. If you struggle with #1 (as I did), use a buddy to help you take a break and head out for a climb. If they are a school friend, another tactic is to set a study time where you guys study together, and then you set a time to shift gears into climbing. For those of you that have longer commutes, you can bring your school work to the gym, work a bit at the gym, and then climb later in the day before heading home.
3. Use Off Times: Every student has those times of day where they just won’t do school work. I am not a morning person, and I would hardly ever sacrifice my morning sleep for climbing. However, despite being a night person, unless I had something big due the next day, I’d hardly do anything by the late evening. Since I wouldn’t be working much anyway, late nights were a perfect time to climb. So, if you have any “off” hours, try to use those to climb.
4. Perspective: My career has always been a high priority for me, but of course I love climbing, and so every climbing sacrifice I had to make for my schooling was painful, but worth it. There were sometimes where it would not matter how hard I worked, I still wouldn’t have time for climbing. I had deadlines, homeworks, labs, etc. that couldn’t be neglected if I wanted to put my best foot forward in school. I think it’s important to recognize that this will happen. At the end of the day, it’s my degrees that help me make money to be able to climb, not the other way around. When push comes to shove, of course you’re going to put your schooling first. At the same time, climbing provides so many benefits that will make you a better student, so you’ll prioritize that, too. These principles may seem at odds with each other, but the key is to find how they actually fit together by playing around with your schedule, friends, work style, etc. until you find a sustainable solution.

Do you guys have any tips for our students? Let us know! Stay in school, keep climbing, and be safe out there!