Teens feel restricted
 Setting priorities
 Enough to make you go insane
 Going overboard

 Thanks for helping us stand
 Resisting pressures of popularity
 Double standard
 Long-distance

 The 1999 issue home page

     With all the pressures of school, friends, sports, hot guys, flirtatious girls, and college approaching at such a pace, setting priorities - for some reason or another - is very uncommon among high school and college students.
     Chris Mays, a P.K. Yonge High School basketball player, explains how peer pressure plays a part in why teenagers do not prioritize and balance their time efficiently. As an athlete, he feels he has to live up to a certain standard his peers create for him.
     "Sometimes I worry about my home boys making fun of me when I turn down parties for school or other engagements I have to prepare for. It's difficult saying 'no' to friends. So to keep them happy I don't prioritize, I just have fun," said Mays.
     Why is prioritizing so uncool to teenagers and college students? Prioritizing is simply arranging things in order of importance, and not only arranging it, but also being committed to it.
     "I think students need to do an order of a daily set of priorities and each day focus on the top ones, which should be education," said Laurence Alexander, a University of Florida journalism professor who teaches newspaper editing and law of mass communication.
     "There's always a handful that call me before classes saying, 'Oh my head hurts and my stomach hurts!' And I'm thinking this is hilarious because they want me to feel sorry for something they caused. No one demanded that they attend the party, they did it at free will," Alexander said.
     During the summer at the University of Florida, a few college students stick around to type thesis papers and do hard-core, brain-draining research. They can't go home or to the beach like the rest of their classmates.
     Maybe it's because they would rather stay and possibly get a head start on next semester. Or maybe it's because they waited until the last minute and did not prioritize time properly. UF student Bernard Pierre laughs as he recalls the number of times he has talked to his peers about the advantages of time management, and how many times they stubbornly ignore his warnings.
     "I tell them consistently about the dangers of not allocating your time. Time is so precious in college. You have to manage it well," Pierre said.
     For a Miami Northwestern High honors student, managing time well is a theme of life. Senior Paris Clark has held advanced placement courses since her junior year and can remember how hard it was choosing education over a night at the skating rink.
     "Making the right decisions is a task in itself, but you have to think about your future. I can confess to wanting to give in, and wanting to put my studies aside for a night on the town," Clark said. "But then I remember I have a job to do. I remember my goals and honestly, I don't care to go anymore."
     Prioritizing can be used for more than educational or school purposes; it can also be used to ensure quality time with individuals who seem to always consume all of your social time. Miami Carol City High student Alexander Scott believes a weakness for romance has led him to embrace this theory.
     "I can remember a time when I didn't worry much about time management because I didn't think I needed to. My life was basically centered around basketball and the guys, but now I have a girlfriend and she deserves just as much time as my friends," said Scott. "I love my girlfriend and she is major part of my life, and I would sacrifice whatever she wants me to sacrifice, including time."
     When students choose not to prioritize, UF Professor Kim Walsh-Childers said she can sometimes sympathize with the disappointments many students face because of excuses. But she encourages them to prepare for everything they do, so when they fail a class, she doesn't feel guilty.
     "I have heard them all. 'My computer crashed. My roommate made so much noise, I couldn't concentrate on my thesis paper.' I've even had one to tell me she can't turn in her thesis paper because she cut her hand. It's unbelievable how much energy students put into excuses, and the sad part is, they can use that same energy to plan ahead the first time," said Walsh-Childers.