5 Things To Know Before Becoming A College Swimmer

Photo Courtesy: Jeff Golden

By Erin Himes, Swimming World College Intern

If you’ve swum through high school at a competitive level, you know what time management is. If you plan on swimming in college, many of your acquired skills will come in handy, but there are quite a few wonderful (and exhausting) parts of college swimming that may come as unexpected surprises.

1.Being a student-athlete really is a full time job.

Photo Courtesy: Abhi Sharma

Spending 20 hours a week at workouts and roughly 15 to 18 in class is nearly 40 hours a week you have set aside specifically for school and swimming. This leaves your schedule limited for outside of class school work and social activities. Pepperdine freshman Lauren Allard pointed out that this comes with ups and downs saying “having the structure of practice and weights can force you to set aside time for homework, but in other situations it can be stressful to be forced to only have constricted windows of time to do things.” Regardless, balancing swimming and school requires a lot of focus and planning.

2. Everyone is there to put in work.

No more of that kid who only comes to practice because their mom drags them out of bed to get there, because college swimming is all on you. For the most part, the majority of your teammates are ready to put in the work, both at school and in the pool. Allard called it “uniquely humbling” to be surrounded by people like-minded to yourself and I agree. Spending time with others with an incredible work ethic only makes you want to be better, too.

3. There are different paths to success.

US Olympic Training Center altitude open water camp 2015

Photo Courtesy: Tyler Fenwick

Everyone’s club team was different, yet every member of your new team ended up here. Just because your club program worked for you does not mean that it is the only thing that can work for you. Coming from a successful high school career can cause you to view anything different as wrong, but that is simply not the case. Washington University in St.Louis junior Erin Polries confirmed this, saying “changing it up can be scary, and it might take a while to get used to, but it will be worth it.” There are different roads to success and being open-minded to this possibility will lead you to a better attitude and more overall success in your collegiate career.

4. Teammates make the best friends.

Watching all of your non-swimmer friends search for roommates at the end of senior year and try to make friends the first few weeks of school makes you instantly grateful for the immediate friends you have in your teammates. The transition to college is socially extremely stressful, but having familiar faces all around from the beginning makes it much easier. Pepperdine freshman Jessie King commented on the ease that having teammates all over campus gave her, saying “going into the cafe was never awkward because I knew there was going to be a squad member in there.” The first few months of freshman year, as well as the rest of college, are definitely made easier by having a group of go-to friends who are there for you through it all.

5. Once you start collegiate swimming, you won’t be able to imagine life without it.

Photo Courtesy: David Wegiel

Personally, I was never confident that I wanted to swim in college. I wanted to be normal and have free time and make friends. Now that I’m approaching the end of my college swimming career, I can’t imagine the past three years without swimming to keep me on track, teammates to push me and comfort me, and coaches to guide my journey. Being a part of a collegiate team is an irreplaceable experience that teaches you more about yourself than you could imagine going into it and provides you with relationships that will last a lifetime.

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