A majority of college students have reported experiencing different levels of stress throughout their college careers. From entering a new school and environment to becoming independent, maintaining high grades and beginning a new life, students deal with a tremendous amount of pressure. Throughout their college education, college students experience stress that affects them psychologically, physically, and socially. This, in turn, requires college officials to introduce a variety of programs on and off campus to help college students overcome the stress that they encounter. College students, generally 18 to 24 years old, are vulnerable and the most likely of all the demographic groups to experience stress. The National Institute of Mental Health defines stress as: “The brain's response to any demand. Many things can trigger this response, including change. Changes can be positive or negative, as well as real or perceived. They may be recurring, short-term, or long-term and may include things like commuting to and from school or work every day, [...] or moving to another [place]. Changes can be mild and relatively harmless [...] other changes are extreme, such as exposure to violence, and can lead to traumatic stress reactions.” The definition above relates to college students, as they are exposed to countless stress factors every day. According to Jennifer Dumlao, previous studies have shown that “there is substantial change in the performance of health behaviors during the first three years of college, and that peers can have a strong impact on the types and magnitude of these changes.” This emphasizes that an individual’s surroundings can influence the amount of stress that the person is exposed to. Also, an ironic fact obtaine... ... middle of paper ... ...he diploma may involve a touch and go semester, a year off, living at home and picking up some courses at a local community college, or on and off visits for several years to the counseling office. However it goes graduation is an impressive milestone. And the struggling? It’s a common part of the package”. The statement above is an example of how college officials’ should act toward students. It is true that just because a student is sad does not mean that he or she is stressed or depressed. But it would not hurt the professor to ask the students how they are doing. Although it is college, professor should care about what happens to their students; they should ask once in a while how everyone is doing. College officials’ should want to earn the trust of the student, so that the student can feel as if they have someone to talk to when they are having a problem.
In the essay “College Pressures” by William Zinsser, Zinsser speaks about the pressures and anxiety that plague college students, all the while wishing that they had “a chance to savor each segment of their education as an experience in itself and not as a grim preparation for the next step.” Referring to the 1979 generation of college students as “panicky to succeed”, he lists four of the following stressors for college students.
Study shows college students deal with high amounts of stress. The State News. N.p., 10 Feb. 2013. Web. The Web.
While some may construe Carlos’ situation as an uncommon, for college students, similar situations occur more often than they might like. Zinsser states “I see four kinds of pressure working on college students today: economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self-induced pressure.”(259). In this statement Zinsser uses Division-Classification to break down the different types of pressure students might encounter. The stress students experience comes in varying forms, affecting different aspects of their lives.
Everyone has experienced some type of stress in their life. Whether it has been from work, school, or trouble at home, stress is stress. If anyone had played sports in high school, you know the challenge of balancing school and sports. Imagine that stress, then multiply it exponentially. Everyone knows that college is a much more rigorous version of high school.
Stress comes from many areas of life especially as an adult student incorporating school at a time in life when family and work are paramount. “Adults just returning to school have substantially higher anxiety about school in general and writing in particular than younger students.”3 Stress, best described by its "synonyms: strain, pressure, (nervous) tension, worry, anxiety, trouble, difficultly"1 has a medical history "According to the American Psychological Association, the majority of office visits to the doctor involve stress-related complaints, and stress is linked to the six leading causes of death: heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidents, cirrhosis of the liver, and suicide."2 If managed, stress can be a way to inform me; learning how to recognize my level of stress capacity is important. The Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory 5 http://www.stress.org/holmes-rahe-stress-inventory/ is a list of stressful events that contribute to illness. My personal score on this life stress inventory is 236; I fall in the category of about a fifty percent chance of a major health breakdown in the next...
According to the College Health website, “No one is immune from stress, but those entering the ivory towers of college are particularly vulnerable to it.” Attending college for the first time gave me a feeling of displacement, nonetheless, I maintained my sense of priority, I am here to learn, here to excel, and here to focus on my objective.
National Health Ministries (2006). Stress & The College Student. The University of Illinois at Chicago. http://www.uic.edu/depts/wellctr/docs/Stress%20and%20the%20College%20Student.pdf
Rationale As reviewed, research has examined the interaction between stressful life events and the overall health of humans. This investigation will examine this relationship in a collegiate population, using two pen and paper surveys. Hypothesis Scores on the College Life Stress Inventory (CLSI) (Renner and Mackin, 1998) are positively related to scores on the Health Inventory (HI) (Holmes and Rahe, 1967). The proposed research design will be a correlative analysis of participants’ scores on these two measures.
Studies have shown that many college students are not able to handle the stress while in school, which hinders the ability for the brain to act in a normal way (Shahrokh and Hales, 2003). If a person is unable to deal with the stress that one is being faced with, it will have negative consequences in terms of causing several psychological disorders (Canby et al., 2014). Entering post-secondary education is a completely new environment for students, as it can be tough for many to adjust to the new surroundings. There are many factors that cause stress when students enter college, as it can include having the ability to deal with lower marks (Struthers et al., 2000) and having to create a new social life. Once and if a social life is established, it can cause more stress among students because it can lead into peer pressure that results in risky behavior. In particular, peer pressure can cause alcoholism or drug abuse (Seiffge-Krenke, 1990) or it can also cause unprotected sex. Not only does stress revolve around peer-pressure, but it can also be caused by headaches and lack of energy. If a student is constantly staying up late to finish assignments or to study, it can cause headaches from the lack of sleep; thus causing stress. With all the given factors, it can be hard to overcome these external factors which can ultimately lead to stress among
Driscoll, Emily. “Stress in College: What Causes it and How to Combat it.” Online posting. 31
College students face strenuous workloads daily, causing them to feel more pressure about their schoolwork and academics and resulting in anxiousness. About 50% of college students today are suffering from depression, a larger number than most believe, but not all reveal that they have a depressive issue (Deroma, Leach, Leverett 325). Researchers suggest that academic stress plays a big role in a college student’s depression. Most people know that college is a lot harder than high school ...
Everyone deals with stress at some point in his or her life. Most people deal with it daily. As defined in the book called Principles and Labs for Fitness and Wellness, stress is, “The mental, emotional, and physiological response of the body to any situation that is new, threatening, frightening, or exciting” (Hoeger & Hoeger, 2012). This stress is caused by a stressor, which is also known as “a stress-causing event” (Hoeger & Hoeger, 2012). Stressors can take all different forms, from moving to a new town, having a baby, or even writing a paper (Boyd, Wood, & Wood, 2011). One major stressor in life can be going to college. If not coped with properly, these stressors can leave a person with too much stress that could end up harming them mentally and physically, such as developing an illness (Boyd, Wood, & Wood, 2011). There are several ways to cope with stress. Some healthy ways to cope with stress would be practicing emotion-focused coping, building time-management techniques, and practicing meditation.
Driscoll, E. (2013) Stress in College: What Causes it and How to Combat it, FOX Business, 73(12)
"Forty-three percent of all adults suffer adverse health effects from stress; 75 to 90 percent of all physician office visits are for stress-related ailments and complaints; stress is linked to the six leading causes of death--heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidents, cirrhosis of the liver, and suicide." (Miller, 1993, p.12) " Stress plays havoc with our health, our productivity, our pocketbooks, and our lives, but it is necessary, even desirable." (Oxford, 1998, p.29)
Stress presents itself in different ways. Some students may experience changes in sleep and eating patterns, increased frequency of headaches, increased levels of frustration and anger, being more irritable than normal, recurring colds and minor illnesses, frequent muscle aches and tightness, being more disorganized than usual, greater sense of persistent time pressure and increased difficulty in getting things done. Stressed college students may express multiple symptoms at once, which may render them incapable of completing assignments or even doing daily tasks. It is important to learn how to recognize when stress levels are out of control. The most dangerous thing about stress is how easily it can creep up on students. They get used to it and it starts to feels familiar. Students do not notice how much it is affecting them, even as it takes a heavy toll. The signs and symptoms of stress overload can be almost anything. Stress affects the mind, body, and behavior in many ways, ...