A day in the life of Kallee Gallant

By: Zoe Bernardi, Community Editor

Imagine working three jobs, being a triple major in mechanical engineering, physics, and pure mathematics, attending 18 hours of ballet practice plus doing homework, eating three meals and sleeping the correct amount of hours a week. Seems almost impossible to do.

However, Kallee Gallant a sophomore at USM manages to do all of the above.

Gallant who lives in Cumberland goes to class in both the Gorham and Portland campuses and drives to dance rehearsals in Falmouth. Her days are planned a week in advance among many pages of her bullet journal. Thursdays are her crazy days, rounding up all three majors with each class and ending it with ballet.

6:15: Gallant who quotes she is not a morning person wakes up at 6:15, and makes herself a smoothie for the road.

7:15: Sits in traffic on her commute from her home to Gorham for her first class, sipping on her smoothie and trying staying fully caffeinated.

8:00: 1st class is material science that Gallant takes Mon-Wed and Tue-Thur classes. She states that she rather have a class twice a week than once a week. Comparing it to interval training, “ I like short bursts rather than long classes.”

10:15: By now Gallant has finished her first class and driven back to Portland for her second class- math modeling.

11:30: In between her second and third class, Gallant tries to eat her lunch as she has class at 11:45.

11:45: Third and final class of the day is physics, where she finishes her lunch.

1:00: Gallant has been a learning assistant (LA) since her first semester, as she was apart of the early aspiration program here at USM, where she was a senior in high school taking college credit.

2:00: After an hour of office hours, helping students with homework help for algebra-based physics, Gallant works 8 to 9 hours a week as an LA.

2:15: When she finally leaves campus she goes over to the Maine State Ballet company, where she is a first soloist ballet dancer. Gallants likes to give herself over an hour to get ready for dance and does not like to be rushed.

3:30: Teaching 2nd and 4th grade ballet classes for an hour. She teaches 6 classes a week.

5:45: Once done with teaching Gallant moves right into her own rehearsal. These rehearsals are an hour and a half. Gallant dances 6 days out of the week. Plus this weekend she has a performance for the show Paquita and Firebird.

7:45: Finally home, she can finally eat and relax and prepare for the next day.

11-11:30: Bedtime.

Gallant tries not to do homework on Thursdays. She makes this happen by keeping Wednesday as a deadline for finishing all of her school work. On Fridays she has one lab class where she is the LA, and then spends the day doing homework and class work. On Saturdays Gallant works her third job as a waitress and work staff at a restaurant in Falmouth.

To keep sane, Gallant values her time alone in her many car rides every day when she can listen to music or call a friend. These moments of silence allow Gallant to relax and have time to regroup before jumping back into her busy schedule.