Approximately two years ago I went to work, got back home and stayed mostly home, because I didn’t have energy to do anything else. This was my everyday life in repeat. Now I’m juggling my time between being a fulltime business student, head of my department at work and with not just one, but two physical hobbies – football and roller derby. With these formal and not so formal responsibilities I am still trying to save some time for myself, to my man and to my three cats, yes I’m also crazy cat lady, and to my friends, who have gotten used to the fact, that they do not see me so often, but that I will always be there, if they need me.

Getting used to being a student has proven to be easier with every week that passes by. After over a decade of being an employee whose responsibilities mostly ended when shift ended, it has been challenging to get used to the fact, that when you’re a student, you usually have some school related things to do after your school day, or school week ends, but once you get a hang of it, it’s nothing but normal to come home from school just so you can turn on your computer and start doing school assignments. You could say, that my biggest challenge of this semester has been learning how to study, and how to be student again after so many years.

In a Gateway to Business class we were introduced with time management skills, with calculations, how much work in hours does seven courses contain and the end result was that with seven courses, sleep, and other life included, students would have 29 hours of free choice within 4 months, which means 29 hours of anything you want to do within the semester. With me, the other life tends to take a bit more time than is taken into consideration in these calculations. With full time student status and part time worker/full time manager status you can see how complicated my scheduling can sometimes be. Even though I am not always working, I have faced some troubles combining my student life, with my manager position, because I have had to rearrange my employees work shifts almost once a week because someone has always called in sick. Thus I have mostly missed out funniest part of being a student – parties! While I have been missing all the parties of the semester, except for the Christmas party, our group has managed to form a tight bond with each other, and they have happily included this oldest of our class, “I do not have time to party”-person to their shenanigans whenever my schedule has allowed it.

When school or works stress has really gotten to me, I have been lucky enough to have hobbies that have given my body and mind a way to relax and helped me to keep my sanity, what is left of it, intact. Being a part with two awesome groups of people, who want to do something together and have fun while doing it has really improved my quality of life. While I’m in the football field or in roller derby track trying to pass my opponents, I do not worry about deadlines in school or work related problems, there I can just focus on doing my best with the skills I’ve got and with awesome team mates, who are there for the same reason that I am – love for the game.

I can say, that even those times when I’m cursing in my mind my decision to give up my fulltime job and come to study, this mostly happens when I’m dealing with some difficult assignment, I’m happy that I challenged myself out of my comfort zone. It has given me so much new experiences and people in my life that it’s amazing. So if you ever find yourself wondering is it worth it, or that you might be too old for studying I would say that if it’s something you are wondering, it seems to be something what you want, and in this case you can not go wrong with something that you want. So do it, just do it! Life will sort itself out, just enjoy the ride that you have along the way.

Written by Minna Tuittu
Editor: Trang Dang