School performance can be affected by anything that takes up a student’s attention, time, and energy. Expectations are that when students join college they will purely concentrate on academic work and not relationships.
However, they find it very hard to resist the urge of being attracted to the opposite gender and hence they find themselves in relationships.
The consequences of college dating on one’s academic performance depend on finding a proper balance between studies and social life and therefore one has to find a balance between the two in order to get good grades and succeed academically.
Does College Dating affect Grades?
College dating affects academic performance depending on a number of factors, such as whether a partner is supportive or not, whether the relationship is a happy one, the intensity of the dating, and how your boundaries are.
College dating can affect your grades either positively or negatively depending on how you handle it. If you date to socialize and study with your partner, your grades will improve. However, if you date and spend time on relationships rather than studies, your dating will lead to failure and bad grades. Therefore, you need to balance your time and date in a healthy manner.
Dating requires partners to always stand by each other in all situations. College work can, at times, be stressful, so it is important to have a partner who will motivate you when the need arises.
This entails understanding and being patient when you are forced to keep away from the phone or request a date rescheduling because you need to put in shifts in your assignments and academic work.
Your partner should be ready to help you with academic work and projects, research, and revision for examinations.
If you get a partner who is only interested in other activities but not academics, be sure that you will end up with poor grades.
Just like any other level of social life, you are likely to perform well in school if you are happy and comfortable with the person you are dating.
In case you get involved in a toxic relationship, it will definitely take a toll on you mentally and emotionally and consequently, it will affect your academic progress in college and overly your grades.
Partners can come together and deliberate on how they can support one another in all aspects of college life so as to be happy in their relationship and avoid stressful situations.
This will let them focus and feel motivated to get better grades in school. While it is said that College dating is worth it, it can motivate you or demotivate you.
The intensity of your dating will affect your grades for the better or for the worse. College dating requires energy and time to sustain them more so when you are so fond of someone.
There will be the urge to frequently talk and meet with your partner, an urge that will take away a lot of your time and leave you with less energy and time to study.
This can have a negative bearing on your results because you will use your precious time on sustaining the dating at the expense of studying.
How College Dating Affects Students’ Performance
The effects of students’ performance when dating while in college will vary depending on the activities partners engage in and the time they invest their relationship in.
Getting into college provides students with the challenge of having to cope with academic changes and a number of academic difficulties.
This forces them to adopt proper learning strategies and invest enough time in academic work in order to succeed in learning and by extension exams.
In some quarters, students will claim that college relationships play a huge role in boosting their academic performance.
Students with this notion believe that through dating in college, they are able to deal with various stress levels which in turn helps them to attain higher grades.
When this is put into perspective, it shows that some partners are actually very supportive in dating which is a positive sign when it comes to the academic side of a relationship pointing to the fact that college dating is not that bad after all.
The time that is spent by partners strengthening their relationship may divert their focus from academic work and reduce their investment in learning.
The students will dedicate more of their time to romance and other dating behaviors which most likely will risk their academic achievements in college.
This implies that dating will negatively affect studies and performance because partners cannot dedicate 100% time to studies.
College relationships are not as rosy as one might expect, and so they are not immune to breakups. When these breakups occur, they tend to be devastating, with some exhibiting irreparable damage.
It may lead to one of the partners losing interest in classes and even not attending class. Such breakups eventually lower their self-esteem, making them less concerned about scoring good grades; at that point, learning loses meaning at the expense of love.
Tips on How to Reduce the Effects of Dating on Grades
Students must find the right balance between their academic work and relationships if they want their grades not to be affected.
In as much as students want to attain good grades, they should not ignore nurturing their relationships because they are also crucial in their future life.
To achieve this balance, a number of tips can be employed to ensure that dating does not adversely affect a student’s grade.
1. Making studying an order
People in love will always want to spend time together, which can really eat into their academic time.
Should they find themselves in a situation where they have to make a choice of whether to be together most of the time or to spend their time studying, studies must always win that contest.
In case academic work demands their attention, they should give it to the fullest. Equally when your partner makes a similar decision support it because it is a show of commitment and a sign of a better future.
As a matter of fact, there will always be a lot of time in the future to spend together after succeeding in academics.
2. Evaluating the Relationship and Academic Performance
In case partners notice that the time they spend on their relationship is affecting their academic performance or the other way around then it means that they have to sit down and reevaluate their position in order to find an equilibrium.
This can be done through a very honest conversation between the partners so as to come up with a remedy that will help in creating a balance in studies and their relationship for better grades.
3. Studying Together and Helping Each other out Academically
Partners dating in college while helping each other academically can kill two birds with a single stone by combining their study time.
However, this can only be feasible if they do not distract each other with non-academic issues because it will take away much of their time.
If partners decide to help each to handle particular topics, they can be sure that they will always be well prepared for their examinations and therefore get good grades.
Should this work, it can really help partners to perform well in their academic work and, at the same time, blossom their relationship. But staying together does not mean sharing a room with your college partners and living like married people.
How to Maintain a Healthy Relationship in College?
A healthy relationship is one that consists of good communication, mutual respect, honesty, support, and trust, which should be accompanied by taking and accepting responsibility, respecting personal space, and openly communicating.
One way of maintaining a healthy relationship in college is by ensuring that each partner’s expectations are realistic. It is also realistic to know that college relationships may not last and therefore, a healthy approach is needed.
It is important to understand that for a relationship to be healthy, partners must accept each other the way they are and avoid the urge to try to change either of them.
It should not be a matter of do or die because no person can be similar to us, and so disappointments should be expected in relationships, but because of common interests, a proper balance should be found.
Another tip for a healthy relationship in college is having proper communication. You need to be there for your partner and honestly listen to what they are saying without interrupting them.
Moreover, try to share information, especially during the early stages of dating, and be generous with information but do not burden your partner with many issues too soon.
Additionally, try to ask questions in case you need clarifications or if you feel that you have not understood a point, do so appropriately and in a friendly way without undermining or hurting your partner.
Always try to solve relationship problems fast before they escalate. When such situations arise, negotiate on when to iron them out but avoid handling them when tired or angry to avoid quarrels and ugly confrontations.
In case of arguments, stick to the causative topic, and do not use the past as ammunition to fuel a current argument.
Most importantly, if you happen to be wrong, admit it and try as much as possible to make things right.
Human beings are meant to be social as they live in various environments and college students are no exception to that. As they involve themselves in dating, they must be wary of how college dating might affect their grades and therefore should find ways to balance the two.
Finally, successful relationships must be healthy for the well-being of the involved parties. It is upon the student to decide on what they feel will be a win-win situation.
