Starting university
This post has been a long time coming for sure and I've gotten a lot of questions about it. Well here I am to tell you how I went from "I want to focus on sports and worry about school after my career" to "I need something to balance this out".
Though I have always been an advocate (and still am) of giving your all to sports, during my past season in Lugano I realized that I need something else. If only to get my mind off of volleyball every once in a while. Honestly as much as I love playing professionally, it can get pretty boring. Anyone who knows me will definitely understand what I mean by that as I'm the kind of person who always has something or the other going on. After this heureka moment, I started looking into university programs.
At first I assumed there was no way I could manage this in a regular Finnish university and ended up looking at schools with online opportunities. These quickly proved to be way too expensive. I then revisited the idea of going to a Finnish university and sure enough, there is a lot you can do online in the fields of study that I'm interested in. Actually one of the schools was in my hometown, which was perfect.
The fields I'm interested in are law, politics and international relations. So I started a vigorous research of how much of each program can be done fully or partly online. This consisted of so many phone calls and emails that thinking of it makes me dizzy all over again. I ended up applying to a few programs in politics but because I was with the national team, I couldn't make it to the admissions exams. I also applied to some law schools but came across the same problem. Fortunately I also applied to some programs that accepted students based on their high school diploma. That is how I got accepted in to the Administrative studies program in the Faculty of Management and Business at the University of Tampere.
Come September, I was able to attend the first two days of school which was really helpful. I got to meet everyone I study with and make some friends too. I was pleasantly suprised with how understanding all the staff and professors have been about my situation. I know I would love going to all the freshmen events and meet new people but I was aware of the fact that if I wanted to play while I study, I would have to give something up. You can't always have it all.
Right about now my first period (the academic year consists of four study periods) is coming to an end. I have to say that I'm so lucky this university's and especially my universities courses are so modern and advanced. Most of the lectures are streamed live and saved after so I can watch them whenever and where-ever. What suprised me the most though was that even courses that are not initially described as online courses were also streamed and saved online. Most of my exams can be done at the University of Lapland or I can alternatively turn in an essay. Some exams have to be done in Tampere but fortunately we play around there a lot so I can get those out of the way too. The structure of my first year might differ a little from normal but contrary to what I thought, I shouldn't fall behind at all with my studies.
As I'm prepping for my first exam on Monday, I can honestly say that I have really enjoyed my studies. Of course there are some things that are more interesting than others but I now that I'm in the right place. The program of Administrative studies is very versatile and due to the large variety of free choice studies I can make it look exactly the way I want it to. I will get more in depth with what my degree will consist of later on.
As I said in the beginning, I still believe in going full throttle with sports if that's what you want to do. You have your whole life to study but only a small portion of time for professional sports. I've just learned that one does not necessarily have to cancel out the other. I personally am the kind of person who needs something else to focus on in order to get the most out of myself. It would be the same thing if I was primarily studying: I would still need at least one hobby to balance it out. In addition, I'm almost as ambitious in academics and career as I am in sports. My dream job would be something like an ambassador or a diplomat. I strongly believe these studies can take me towards that dream.
x Jess
