Balancing Art and Academic Responsibilities at IAA
Written by Kalea Hoffner
It is a well known fact that IAA students are always busy, their schedules packed with arts and academic classes from morning until night. With college application deadlines this fall and audition season looming, the amount of work that IAA students are responsible for is at an all time high.
With that being said, IAA students often don’t have much, or any, free time during the day. Iliana Demas, a senior Creative Writing major, says, “I have arts classes until 6 p.m. and then I have to get dinner, and then I have to do my homework, and by the time I do that, it’s 10 p.m. There’s no time to do anything else, like go to the gym.”
After long, busy days of school, homework, and extracurricular activities, students at IAA, as well as teenagers across the world, often find themselves scrolling on their phones late at night instead of going to sleep. This is known as Revenge Bedtime Procrastination and serves as an attempt to make up for downtime that was unavailable during the day.
Lila Jackson, a senior Dance major, says, “I stay up late scrolling on my phone a lot. I stay up until the WiFi goes out, scrolling because I don’t have time to scroll during the day.”
While many think this habit helps them unwind after a long day, it actually does the opposite.
Naturally, balancing all of the typical academy responsibilities with the added responsibility of completing application and audition materials on time can be challenging. That being said, at IAA, in each of the arts disciplines, standards of excellence are expected of the students, both by teachers and by the students themselves. This is the same for many of the programs that IAA students apply for, which may leave them feeling stressed and overwhelmed.
Rowan Barber, a junior Dance major at IAA, says, “I definitely feel pressure being in both choir and dance…I want to be able to do the best that I can in both, and that can be stressful from time to time. I have to juggle not just learning choreography, but learning a ton of music too.”
To keep up with everything expected of students at IAA, self-care must be prioritized to the same extent as academy and audition tasks. While fears of burnout may be inevitable in a chronically busy environment such as IAA, it can be prevented by balancing required responsibilities and life. Each day, students should set aside time to do things they enjoy outside of their art form, even if for just a few minutes. This can be as simple as taking a walk around campus, working on a coloring sheet, or reading a few pages of a book. While it may seem counterintuitive to take these moments away, having time to relax and unwind will ultimately benefit IAA students as they work to complete their tasks, as it may provide them with newfound passion and inspiration in their art disciplines.
In order to find balance at the academy, Isabel Fuzi, a senior Musical Theater major and the IAA Student Representative Board’s Mindfulness, Wellness, and Resilience Officer, recommends that students make a loose schedule and to-do list for the week to outline priorities, communicate with teachers if they missed class, aren't feeling well, or need an extension on an assignment, and go to bed at the same time each night to optimize rest and recovery time.
Ultimately, Isabel says the best thing students can do for themselves is figure out what they need and not let other people’s plans, opinions, or distractions get in the way. She says, “Practicing mindfulness and gratitude for everything we have at our fingertips on this campus truly helps put things in perspective and relieves a lot of the pressure and stress we put on ourselves and each other to be high-functioning and perfect all the time.”