Photos courtesy of Chloe Boudames
Pepperdine’s junior class student body president, Chloe Boudames, is all too familiar with the challenge of finding balance in college. Boudames has become a master of time management as she has to juggle many extracurricular time commitments on top of her school work.
Boudames does PA (production assistant) and feature, or extra work, with Paramount on the weekends and breaks, started her own magazine called Hotheaded Magazine, is the junior president, does Instagram influencing and brand deals, is a full-time student, just joined Alpha Phi and works on Good Morning Malibu as an entertainment reporter.
Boudames said handling school work and life can be difficult, but “it’s all about time management.”
“You have to allocate your time, and there have been a lot of times where I haven’t been able to go out or go hang with friends,” Boudames said. “I have acting lessons five days a week for four hours. Every minute of my day is scheduled, so there have been so many times where I have to say, ‘Sorry I can’t make it.’ But I think it is more important right now to be working and grinding it out rather than go out. This is your time to get ahead. School comes first, then it’s those extracurriculars, and friends are last when you have time.”
Boudames said she has always made a habit out of overloading her schedule.
“I’ve always been balancing a lot, so I’m used to allocating my time,” Boudames said. “But there are definitely times where it gets stressful, and I feel like I am doing way too much, and I get burned out, but there is a reward in the end.”
Boudames has advice for incoming students and fellow students alike who are having trouble with finding the balance.
“You need to know how much you can handle,” she said. “There have been times where I have put way too much on my plate and then you’re not doing too well in any of it because you have too much and you end up just doing mediocre in all of it. So, I’d say just find your balance with how much you can handle, because once you find that you can get it down to a rhythm.”
Boudames has a lot of experience juggling many roles with her various jobs, hobbies and extracurricular activities on top of her school work and shared her advice with anyone who might be struggling with the same thing.
“When you are passionate about what you do, it’s easy to balance extracurricular and school because instead of it being too much work, it’s just you having fun doing what you’re passionate about,” Boudames said.
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