Balancing raiding and college?

[JKim]

Hey guys,

To those of you who raid competitively in heroic guilds, do you think it is possible to raid 3/4 days a week for a total of 12/16 hours a week while maintaining good grades in a 4 year university (not community colleges)? I want to start raiding again and am thinking about buying a new computer, however, I'm afraid if it'll work out.

[Deleted]

I do 9 hours, works well

[ThunderPussy]

I don't know. As long as you can keep your grades up then yes. Pretty sure this is kind of a personal thing. Some people can. Some people can't.

[slime]

Of course it is, but how easily accomplishable is all relative to you. You can schedule your classes around your raid schedule, or vice versa, find a guild that raid when you never have class. How much you can get done is all up to you.

That being said, don't ever put raiding ahead of your school work - and honestly it isn't about finding a balance, It's about doing school first then when all that is done - having some fun raiding. Unless in your future your job will be raiding in WoW - you will be sorry for letting it get even remotely in the way of your schooling.

[Deleted]

Personal matter, as stated before.

There was a good post a while ago about this, with some great responses.

Time in college makes foundations for your future house
Time in wow makes you nothing

[Natureseer]

Honestly raiding 12-16 hours a week is more likely to impact your social life than your studies.

[clevin]

I'd say no, but it is personal. A lot of this depends on 1) how demanding college is for you (including doing stuff outside of class i.e. papers, research, etc) 2) whether you have a job and how much time that takes, 3) other social stuff.

Rather obviously, you don't want WoW to hurt college and if you need a job to make ends meet you can't risk your job to raid. Now, if you spend 3 hours a day in classes and another few in getting stuff done for your classes (say, 5) and you don't have a job, you should be fine. But if you spend 6-8 hours on school stuff AND a job? Probably not.

In your shoes, not knowing any more details, I'd raid Flex. If you can't make it, you're not screwing a raid up, the instance adjusts (presuming you're DPS... if you're heals or a tank it's a bit more of a problem for them).

[Inthislzon]

Hey guys,

To those of you who raid competitively in heroic guilds, do you think it is possible to raid 3/4 days a week for a total of 12/16 hours a week while maintaining good grades in a 4 year university (not community colleges)? I want to start raiding again and am thinking about buying a new computer, however, I'm afraid if it'll work out.

Can be done for sure. 16 hours/week raiding is not much, just keep in mind your raid times and plan your study sessions according to that. As long as you keep your study up to date you could even raid the day before the exams.

Proper planning is key here

[klaps_05]

depends entirely on to you.

i used to raid about 40 hours per week, more during progression and still got my 93% distinction.

the hard part is managing your studying, raiding is ez.

also timing can be a bitch - during progress I had some completely irrelevant, yet 30% of my mark test which I managed to reschedule, but you might not always be able to do so.

[Blueobelisk]

Didn't work for me. I was always tired for raid. I mean I raided but it wasn't at the level I wanted too. MoP seems to be demanding for dailies or whatever and I could manage but it just takes away from my dicking around/relaxation time.

Depends on your major and classes and shit. I'm taking 21 credits + applying to jobs/grad school so I don't have time for raiding. In fact, I beg all my friends to level/gear/maintain a char for me if I were to go back to WoW to play.

[Halicia]

I'd strongly advise against 'serious' raiding. Try committing to no more then 2 nights a week tops. So you *can* raid if you have more free time then expected, but aren't punishing yourself or guildies if you can't raid as much as your thought.

I'd go along with flex too. If anything, you don't even need to commit to a set guildtime if you're comfortable hunting down a pug.

[DetectiveJohnKimble]

College is easy, regardless of where you go, as long as you're savvy about picking the right classes. The question is whether you want to sacrifice your nights for social stuff, or if you're willing to pick classes based on your guild's raid schedule (e.g. not taking a lab because it conflicts with one of your raid nights).

[Osmeric]

Don't screw up your life by gimping your college education.

[Delrancho]

All about time management.

I've been leading raids and running guilds for years, and I've completed my bachelor's in Molecular Biology and am now in my second year of my Molecular and Cell Biology PhD program and work as a paid teaching assistant all during that time. I raid 10-12 hours/week and don't have many issues with it, but it's all about managing your time well and not spending an inordinate amount of time on WoW sites (sorry mmo-c!) when you're not raiding. Sometimes you have to skip a raid (in my case, cancel a raid >.<) when you have exams coming up or something, but it is most definitely doable. I also workout daily and am training for a half marathon. There's plenty of time in the day (most days); use it well!

Edit: As far as the social aspect goes, I prefer to socialize with my friends online over most of the crappy people in my real life. When you play with people for so long, they become like family.

[clevin]

College is easy, regardless of where you go, as long as you're savvy about picking the right classes. The question is whether you want to sacrifice your nights for social stuff, or if you're willing to pick classes based on your guild's raid schedule (e.g. not taking a lab because it conflicts with one of your raid nights).

Anyone who plans their college around raiding has their priorities wrong.

[Balazzar]

Depends on your aptitude and major... If you go liberal arts then you will have so much free time its a joke. If you are going through a rigid and competitive program for STEM that is curved, I would not even bother renewing your account.

[Orcindauh]

Depends how much free time you have + how much time you are willing to put into progressing.

[Oatz]

Join a 2 night per week guild. There's a few of them out there that still raid competitively.

[kaamila]

knowing your major can show us how much time youll have for free time aka wow time

[JKim]

Thanks guys for the advice,

The thing is I only have to take 12 credits a semester and I'm a community health major (Bachelor of Science though, so a few anatomy/lab/bio courses). So far I find myself having a lot of free time and am often really bored. I don't really "party" or drink often, to be honest. I'm not much of a drinker. I have my priority set straight so I should be able to do it. I know it's a personal thing but I guess I just don't want to spend $2k on a computer then have to quit WoW sometime in the near future because I can't keep the raiding up, then have the pc go to waste.