Listen to the Episode
In this episode of Care Conversations, Kristen Buglione, senior program manager of well-being and health coaching at TimelyCare, discusses the importance of time management skills for college students, emphasizing their long-term impact on student’s health, well-being, and future careers. Join Kristen and host Sushi Suresh as they dive into how students can prioritize their time management and the ways colleges can support them.
Care Conversations is an audio series by TimelyCare, higher education’s most trusted virtual health and well-being provider. Each conversation offers thoughtful insights from a subject-matter expert on different topics impacting the health and well-being of campus communities.
What are some of the common time management challenges that students may face?
Kristen Buglione:
That’s a great question. Students have so much on their plate. There are so many competing deadlines and activities. What I tend to see is that students push themselves to try and do it all, and in doing that, they’re sacrificing their basic needs and healthy choices.
Sleep is usually the first thing that’s impacted. Students tend to cut back on sleep, push themselves to stay up later to do more, and fit in everything they’re trying to do. It can really impact them in a lot of different ways, both from a health and well-being perspective.
Sushi Suresh:
For sure that impact can be understated, and I feel like a lot of faculty and staff administrators can see that in their students.How can schools help students overcome these challenges?
Kristen Buglione:
It’s important to look at the holistic experience of a student from an individual staff or faculty member’s point of view. It can be really easy to only think about how that student is interacting within the context of your classroom or your team. If you take a step back and think about the holistic experience for that student, we have a lot of students who are going to school, have jobs, and have family members that they’re supporting. There are a lot of expectations on them and expectations they put on themselves.
If we can help students organize and plan their time, acknowledge that they need that support because they have so much going on, and help them explore and use the tools that are available to them. (Sushi) I love the emphasis that not every student is the same, and they all have so many different experiences. So, approaching them with empathy is so important, but also, I remember as a student, not even knowing what resources were available to me until someone told me.
How can schools integrate time management skills into their curriculum and any student support services that may help them enhance student success?
Kristen Buglione:
I think demonstrating organizational and planning skills inside and outside of the classroom is a great way to help students learn.
- Build it into the learning experience or their experience and their activities outside of the classroom.
- Think about ways to build that into the process. It is really helpful in guiding students to use those strategies and those tools.
- Check in and ask people how they’re doing. Learn about what’s going on with them, and then connect them to resources or tools. Approaching everyone from that human and empathetic lens can really help us all support each other and recognize when another level of support is needed, or just a little extra flexibility would be helpful to help that student manage their time.
Sushi Suresh:
Some of the best professors I know always checked in and were aware that maybe I was struggling a little bit with my time management, and just helped me out by talking through it.
Closing Thought: A lack of time management can dramatically impact a student’s ability to reach their goals. By being aware of these challenges and bringing an empathetic perspective, faculty and staff can help guide students to solutions to help them succeed.
This transcript has been edited from the original conversation for clarity.
