Student Leadership Initiative

Balancing Academics and Leadership

Adam Compton talks about balancing academic and leadership responsibilities.

Interview on 2011-11-28 00:00:00 -0500

Download MP4 Video

Transcript

00:00:00.000 That was probably the toughest thing that I had to do as a student here,
00:00:05.066 and a student leader, because as I mentioned earlier I was the student leader that literally jumped in over my head, didn't look back
00:00:12.098 and then literally treaded water until I graduated.
00:00:16.010 To be honest my academics suffered because of my leadership involvement,
00:00:21.024 but that's where people like Mike Giancola came in a pushed me, and Mindy Sopher, and my fraternity advisor as well,
00:00:26.872 who was an alum, pushed me that you need to focus on your academics,
00:00:32.146 and then my college advisor as well, to say, hey, sometimes you need to go to class.
00:00:39.369 Because, you know, there'd be a meeting and it would be a tuition advisory committee meeting
00:00:44.485 and it's something that's important but yet at the same time I might have a business class that was during that exact time,
00:00:50.370 time, so you had to kind of pick and choose, and it was definitely one of my weak points. A lot of times student senate meetings,
00:00:57.370 before I got involved, went to 3:00 am but still they were going to 1:00 sometimes.
00:01:03.798 So part of it was planning your schedule, knowing that if you're at a student senate meeting until 1:00 am maybe an 8:00 am class on Thursday after a Wednesday student senate meeting's not the best idea.
00:01:14.715 Balancing your course load; I think that was another thing I had to figure out,
00:01:20.154 and that's why most semesters I took twelve hours.
00:01:23.292 There were some semesters that I audited one class of those twelve hours, and I was considered a full time student but I was only really taking nine hours of class.
00:01:30.058 So you can definitely see why I was here for the length of time that I was here. Now, working for the university, I've been on campus for the better part of a decade,
00:01:39.710 starting in 2004 and it's now almost 2012.
00:01:44.771 But it was a tough time and I'm not going to lie; my academics suffered.
00:01:49.790 That's, looking back, probably one of the things that I would try and work on harder, is to really focus on my class and set aside time for my class.

Other Compton Recordings