Iâm on the train on my way home from class and all I can think about is how much work I need to get done. I have an essay due at 8 am, an assignment due in my psychology class, and I have to study for a test I have in two days. But when am I going to do all of this? As soon as I get home I have to shower, eat, and go to work. I donât get out of work until 11 pm so, that means Iâm most likely going to be up late getting all of this done. College. Stress. These two words go together just like peanut butter and jelly. As a student, every spare minute seems to be filled with worrying. You always feel like you have to achieve something and make plans for your future. Instead of relaxing on your days off, you’re worrying about assignments you need to complete, or working to earn some extra money. Whether it is your first or last year in college, youâre under some kind of stress. To my fellow students, youâre not alone and I completely understand. But, we canât let the stress control our lives. Itâs not healthy. As for college professors, we should turn our attention to making sure students can rebound between intense intellectual activity, just as athletes rest between hard and intense workouts.
According to Psych Central, 1 in 5 college students have stress and may even consider suicide. Most students juggle part-time jobs along with school, worry about assignments, stress about the future, and finally how and when to make the next step. Trying to handle all these things at once can leave you feeling overwhelmed. This stress can cause multiples problems, not just emotional, but physical as well. With the pressure to do well in college, students may become sleep deprived. Such sleep deprivation impairs mental capacity, but this is only one of the many problems that may come with stress. There have been so many instances where students are so overwhelmed they turn to drugs or alcohol in hopes of reducing the stress or just âletting goâ for a moment. Next thing you know every time youâre sitting down to get an assignment done, youâll also set down a bottle of wine or vodka at your table. The abuse of Adderall is also very common in students. It is a strong central nervous system stimulant that is used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. But, college students who face a long night of cramming for exams often whip this out in order to improve focus, sharpen mental acuity and provide a small energy boost for more productive study. There’s just so many effects and things that stress can come with.Â
In my case since this is my first year of college, the transition is what has caused most of my stress. I went from attending a high school where the education wasnât the best, where teachers barely taught to becoming a young adult, juggling college and a part-time job. Then the rest of my stress was caused by how unprepared I felt coming into college. Saying that my high school was shit, is an understatement. So now in college, I feel like I have to work twice as hard to make up for what I didn’t learn that I should have knowledge about. The flawed educational system also takes a toll on the students; take me as an example. But in college, I see that one of the most common problems is how professors manage the workload in the class. During my first semester, I felt like it was just a workload after workload. For example, in my psychology class, we had to study for a midterm and then the same day that we took the midterm, we had to do an essay. Of course, everyone knows that college isnât easy because it requires a lot of work from you. But, you gotta cut us some slack. How would you not be stressed out with such intense work being given to you back to back like that?
