[UWF Kugelman Honors Program - Finding Balance graphic]

[Siena Ward speaking]
Balancing honors related activities, which are typically my extracurriculars, takes a lot of planning, especially when coordinating a double major. Google calendar was my best friend. Luckily, it worked out with, like, honors councils. I was on the exec board, so honors council meetings were on Mondays where I didn't have a whole lot of classes, and then, like the exec board meetings were on Thursdays, and the other clubs that I was related to happened to be on Wednesdays. So it was just kind of scheduling to make sure I had time, not only for school work, homework and the requirements for these clubs, but also to make time for myself.

[Eli Ray speaking]
So, work-life balance is always a little bit of a challenge. The key to the work-life balance when it comes to Honors is that the work that you're doing here is just so enriching. It doesn't feel like you're doing work when you're going out with Dr. Janosik to collect marine specimens in Honors Core. It doesn't feel like work when you're going into your communities and doing an analysis of the public parks in the area. It doesn't feel like work when you're getting to go abroad, and you're getting to study other cultures, and yes, there is other work that goes along to it, but really finding those things that are so interesting and so enriching and so make you a rounded, a more well-rounded individual.

[Percy Thrasher speaking]
Honors is really flexible for helping me balance extracurriculars, and a lot of it ties back in with Honors. It allows me to do what I'm passionate about.

[Lucia Dillersberger speaking]
A lot of my other stuff, like undergraduate research, is more science-based, and Honors is more like creative for me. So, to me, Honors is almost like a break. It's a break from all the science, like I love science, but I also have a really creative side to me, so Honors allows me to just take a breather from all of my STEM stuff and have a little bit of time to let my creative side out.

[Sydney Dawson speaking]
I manage sports in the Honors Program by making a calendar list, just blocking out times in my day that I can get stuff done while also taking care of myself. It's a big commitment, but I think it's worth it. Rúnn Cameron
Once I got past the first year, I think it became a lot easier to balance it. And it could just be that you do a lot of honors courses right off the bat with your intro courses, and you're also settling down into college. So, I think with time, I grew to balance it a lot easier. The big thing I would do, and I still do, is just kind of planning out and being aware of my time, both as giving myself downtime and also just pacing out my work and giving myself leeway if things take too much time.

[Quinn Gibson speaking]
Extracurriculars and Honors really go hand in hand. One of the things that helped me to learn about time management with all of that is over the summer, I got to participate in a Noble Hearts Academy initiative that Honors started, where I got to read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. He had really great tips on time management.

[Lucia Dillersberger speaking]
I really love Makerspace. It's really nice to, like come together with everyone from the community and just have a little bit of time to talk and work on something. I do a lot of sewing. I do a lot of cross-stitch.

[Morgan Lakey speaking]
So definitely, time management is a very important detail. I'm involved in a lot of different organizations, so making sure that you spend a little bit of time on each area of your life and kind of schedule it, and then also making sure to have time for yourself so that you don't burn out.