Kian Gadsby
Megan Paul-Thomas doesn’t initially notice me when I arrive to meet her. Sat with her headphones on, she has her eyes firmly focused on her laptop, uninterested in entertaining outside distractions ahead of her exam the upcoming Friday.
I can’t fault her for it. Exam season is a stressful period for everyone, and with her second year counting towards her degree, she is desperate for a good grade to give her the best chance of academic success.
But academia is not Meg’s only priority.
The 20-year-old is also a footballer. Having been capped by Wales at youth level, the midfielder has made her way to Rugby Borough, where she plays with the reserve team and is on the cusp of breaking through to the senior side at the third-tier outfit. She also plays for the university, helping the 1’s team to make the National Championships final at BUCS Big Wednesday last season.
Being successful both academically and in football is admirable, but it makes Meg’s life very busy.
The university side hosts training sessions on Monday and Friday with BUCS matches on Wednesdays. She then travels back home twice a week for training and then again to play a match with Rugby every Sunday.
That is on top of a 20 contact hours a week university schedule. When you consider the amount of extra revision and assignments that are added in, it is a wonder that she has any time for the other elements that form part of the student experience.
Meg is not alone in this. According to BUCS over 100,000 students participate in student sport each year. Worryingly, there is a lack of time for these student athletes to enjoy themselves. One survey in the USA suggested that the average time spent playing sport, studying and sleeping left student-athletes with only 21 hours a week to do anything else, including eating and socialising.
So, how do you balance it? As part of our Student’s Sporting Series, we interviewed Meg to uncover how she can survive being a student-athlete.
“With difficulty,” was the immediate answer, but to dive deeper, we began by walking through a day in Meg’s life.
Although training schedules mean every day is different, hearing her talk about her life offered an insight into how busy she really is.
“I normally start at like 9am through to 5 o’clock, with about four or five lectures. If I’m not that tired, I’ll probably do gym, before training 6 till 7. Sometimes I drive an hour and a half, if there’s traffic, to get to Rugby training. Then I have to get back.”
Indeed, one of the hardest but most underappreciated aspects of being a student-athlete is the travel.
With elite sporting universities dotted around the country, you may have to go a long way to play the best. Some trips, like to Loughborough or city rivals Trent, do not require much effort, but an adventure to Scotland to take on Edinburgh or National Champions St Andrews can see the team spending an entire day travelling.
This takes up a lot of time, and the effect of that is not lost on Meg. She said that the impact of that was arguably the most detrimental to her student experience because of how tired it left her, often having effects that last across multiple days.
“It’s quite tiring because you’re having to get up quite early, sometimes 4am, to go on a bus in order to get there for 12 to have a kick off at 1pm. Or if you’re playing in the evening and then having to try all the way back home and get back at 4am the next day.
“It just means I have to prioritise my lectures on a different day where my training is not as heavy. I need to make sure I have caught up with all the lectures I have that morning.”
With the University of Nottingham being one of the UK’s best sporting universities, thousands of talented athletes end up at this institution, meaning Meg’s situation is hardly unique.
Despite this, it was disappointing to uncover a lack of support from the university to help her academics. She, alongside the other athletes, has been told that she is meant to receive support including more lenient deadlines and a lecture schedule that should avoid match clashes, only to discover that those have not been realised.
“I don’t think there is enough support,” she told me, but instead of complaining, she just, “gets on with it.” It means that she doesn’t know what extra measures she would like to see, but perhaps implementing the ones that have been promised could be a start.
Instead, prioritizing is a key feature of her life, and unfortunately every decision comes at an opportunity cost.
That means that social life, which is a key factor in many student’s decisions to come to the University of Nottingham, is something that Meg has to sacrifice, as she needs to avoid fatigue and hangovers in order to perform at the highest level.
“Unfortunately I can’t go out much. I need to make sure that I’m not having a hangover and that I’m well for training the next day. I can’t not be ready to train because then I won’t play.”
However, to end the interview, I asked her, ‘If you win something, either with BUCS or Rugby, will you be out that night?’
“Of course, my season will be ended!” she grinned, laughing at but relishing the prospect. Being a student athlete is a tough task, but the prospect of enjoying the celebrations at the culmination of a hard season makes the pain worthwhile.
Kian Gadsby
Featured image courtesy of Megan Paul-Thomas. No changes were made to this image.
In article image 1 courtesy of Megan Paul-Thomas from UoN Women’s Football. No changes were made to this image.
In article image 2 courtesy Megan Paul-Thomas from UoN Women’s Football. No changes were made to this image.
