With a swim cap on her head, Rory dives into the heated water. Her arms move in even, sweeping motions. Under the water's surface, her legs flutter-kick. Occasionally, she tilts her head above the water to breathe. Her teammates cheer from the sidelines as she competes in the 100 yard freestyle event.
Related: 10 Ways to Calm Your Nerves at a Swim Meet
Junior Rory Chea serves as captain of the CUNY Queens College Knights' Girls Swimming and Diving Team. In meets, she swims the 50 and 100-yard freestyle or 100 fly. As for team events, she enjoys competing in the 200 medley relay, and holds an impressive 3.8 GPA.
Rory may make it all look easy, but practices in addition to coursework can present challenges to full-time college athletes, which is why she recommends building time management skills. She writes down important dates in her calendar and the free app TimeBloc assists her in planning daily schedules. Color-coding helps with calendar visualization, athletes create routines by selecting the “repeat” option, and athletes personalize calendars with the dark mode feature, all of which make features easy to see and simple to use.
Related: 4 Best Fitness Apps for College Athletes in 2021
Monday.com is a team-oriented calendar app that provides free group calendar services and is perfect for athletic teams like Rory's. On the app, groups utilize features like reminders, recurring events, and calendar syncs. When a teammate creates an event, all collaborators receive a notification. Calendar members can edit and post schedules with ease, add time-sensitive alerts to upcoming events, and see their week at a glance. Color-coded events allow for calendar visualization.
Rory also uses GroupMe to directly communicate with multiple teammates. Free app and website GroupMe seamlessly connects athletes from all devices, and athletes can keep personal information, like phone numbers, private. Other chat users only see their name and profile picture. Athletes can share workout videos, meet locations, and other files. To boost morale, athletes can create custom emojis for the group chat. The app works over SMS as well.
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Swimming has taught Rory about the value of motivation and time management, and thankfully she has all the tech she needs to help her reach her goals. Having a good team behind you is also invaluable, as Rory believes that “working with teammates that cheer for each other really supports you.” Even when things go wrong, Rory believes that athletes should not give up so fast or let a single bad meet define them. “We should always fight hard and see it to the end no matter what,” she says, and this includes reaching your academic goals with all the help you can get.
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* Originally published on December 29, 2022, by Britt Trachtenberg
