Starting college can make it feel like success means joining every club, attending every event, and constantly staying busy. In this blog, Ethan reflects on how overcommitting during his first year at Santa Clara taught me the importance of balance, intentionality, and focusing on what truly matters.
Managing Stress, Finding Balance
From Busy to Balanced
When I started my first year here at Santa Clara, I thought I knew what success looked like: doing everything and being as involved as possible.
I immediately joined a social fraternity and attended as many Finance and Accounting Association panels as I could. I looked into and joined around eight clubs. I had goals to work out every day, network consistently, land an internship during freshman summer, and the list goes on. It felt ambitious, and honestly, it felt like what I was supposed to do.
What I hadn't thought of was just how different college is from high school. For the first time, I was expected to manage my time without anyone's intervention; instead of adjusting to this gradually, I packed my schedule as much as possible. My typical day became a cycle of classes, coffee chats, workouts, other events, and then rushing to finish assignments late at night. I had convinced myself that I was being productive because I was busy, but over time, I realized I wasn’t really making any progress. I wasn’t fully present in anything I was doing, and everything started to feel rushed.
I eventually realized that all of this busyness wasn’t making me better; it was just spreading me thinner and thinner. So I decided to make a change. Instead of trying to be a part of everything, I started focusing on where I could actually make an impact. I slowly became more intentional with my time. I committed to a few things that mattered to me, like being a Leavey Ambassador and staying involved in my fraternity, rather than trying to show up everywhere.
I even changed how I approached networking. At first, I thought it was about volume, but later I realized quality matters more. I took fewer calls, but I was more prepared and more focused on learning. However, one of the changes that helped me most was properly structuring my time. I started using Google Calendar to plan out my days, blocking time for classes, studying, workouts, and even time to reset. This change alone helped me shift from being bogged down by commitments to actually having time to have fun.
Once I made these changes, everything got better. I felt less stressed because I wasn’t constantly juggling everything at once. My grades got better because I was more focused when I studied. My conversations felt more genuine because I wasn’t rushing through them. And ultimately, I was able to land an internship, not by doing everything, but by doing the right things consistently.
At Santa Clara, it's really easy to feel like everyone is doing more and is ahead of you. But what I've realized is that the students who do the best aren’t the busiest; they are just more intentional. Balance isn’t about doing everything. It’s about choosing what matters and committing to it.
If I could give one piece of advice to someone starting at 51³Ô¹Ï, it would be this: you don’t need to do everything to succeed. You just need to do a few things, and do them well.
