College Athletes Summary

Improved Essays
College Athletes : Analysis on Student’s Priorities
Many college students walk onto campus and know exactly what they want to do when they graduate. For many this changes and for many reasons too such as disinterest. But it has been reoccuring that many student athletes are changing their majors for a different reason. College athletes are getting too caught up in their athletics that they do not have enough time to work on a major that is more difficult. As a result of this, counselors have been suggesting switching to easier majors that require less work. So how are students finding a way to solve this problem? Joshua Levine, Sara Etchison, and Daniel Oppenheimer created a study amongst college athletes that showed the “pluralistic ignorance” among students who are involved in athletics, and why they shoot lower for their major, than they do on their free throws. This research is important because it shows how students are getting caught up and not managing their time as well as it needs to. The authors of the article did a good job explaining how students can be affected by multiple factors and they also had an in-depth study planned out, but they did not fully explain their results of the study. The article I read was about how college students get caught up in their athletics and they find themselves too busy to do school work because their sport is a priority. This article was able to focus on two surveys given to college student that questioned them about their academics and if they were in any college sports. As a result of both test, Levine, Etchison, and Oppenheimer concluded that student athletes who were struggling with their academics were struggling because they did not have enough time due to their sport. Before the studies were shown, the authors did a great job explaining about what was causing these students to shoot lower for their academics due to the students’ focus being solely on their athletics. This article used a lot of information on how social groups, such as teammates and roommates, affect how an athlete performs in the classroom which in most cases would be poor. The article also had lots of reason to where most of the athletes time goes if it does not go towards class work, such as going to practice, team bonding, or resting. This is important because it is a good background knowledge for the audience to have before the studies are explained. I was also impressed by how well the authors explained the studies that they performed on the athletes.The authors explained a full procedure for both studies and what was going to happen. This consisted of a steady procedure and
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Overall, the lack of conclusion to the studies does not affect it much, because the article is still fair in detail. I think that the next step for this area would be to try and limit major changes or stress more on student time management. Although the essay was missing a few minor detail, it was great overall. College athletes should not be able to change their major in my opinion because they lack time management skills, or because they find more pride in athletes. Overall, grade point average is far more important than an athlete’s average at the free throw

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