D’Angelo McCornell, junior business management major, juggles 15 credit hours this semester with his roles as a correspondent for TV2’s The Agenda, the College of Business Administration’s Undergraduate Student Government senator, a member of Delta Upsilon fraternity and the entrepreneur of a student-run talk show named “The D’Angelo Show.” Even with only three hours of sleep at night, he doesn’t seem to mind.

“My day is just busy,” McCornell said. “A lot of meetings, a lot of talking to people here and there in between doing my homework and schoolwork.”

Melissa McCreary, sophomore intervention specialist major, can relate. Between working as a Supplemental Instruction leader, teaching a sixth-grade class and helping out with a First Year Experience class, McCreary also takes 18 credit hours.

Like McCornell, McCreary pushes sleep to the back burner.

“I sacrifice sleep. I think that’s kind of how it works,” she said. “On a good day, I probably get like six or seven (hours of sleep), on a normal day, probably like five. I try to sneak in baby naps when I can.”

McCreary integrates her social life into her school life by doing homework with her boyfriend and eating meals with her friends. But McCornell finds that his schedule requires a social life.

“I want a social life. I need one, especially to be a talk show host,” he said. “I need people to know me; I need them to make sure I’m relevant. I want people to have the opportunity to say they met me. I can’t just be a talk show host in my room studying all day.”

McCreary feels her choices reflect her goals as well. She believes that teaching FYE and working as an SI leader will help her to achieve her goals to graduate in four years with a well-formed skill set in her major.

“The more experience I get, I think, the easier it will be to land a job,” she said.

And although both students have made many sacrifices to keep up their busy schedules, neither of them regrets the decision to take on so many activities.

“I do better being busy,” McCreary said. “I feel like I’m always playing catch-up. So I catch up on one thing, and I’m behind like 10 other things. But at the same time, I think if I had more free time, I’d just dilly-dally all the time.”

McCornell said he feels like his busy schedule is a big improvement from when he wasn’t involved in anything other than classes.

“I made this decision myself,” he said. “I can’t say I’m about to stop doing something now. I just got to roll with the punches, I mean, I’m excited about all this stuff.”

Although the pressure of a busy college schedule can be overwhelming, McCornell and McCreary both find personal and professional value in their eventful lives.

“I like being busy,” McCreary said. “I think it’s a good thing. I think you need to be involved. But at the same time, you have to put 100 percent into everything you’re doing so if you can’t do that, you have to cut something out.”

You can contact Kaysea Thomas at [email protected].