Causes of College Stress and Coping Tactics Going to college for the first time in a student’s life is an exciting experience for most. This means having opportunities that weren’t so easily assessable before going to campus, and having the freedom to find ones’ self. While mom and dad aren’t there to hold their child’s hand anymore, the student is more likely to face new challenges, or similar challenges to those faced before, yet suddenly more difficult to handle alone. According to the 2015 National College Health Assessment, 30% of students reported to have noticed a negative impact that stress in their daily lives was taking on their education. College stress can be caused by many factors including, but not limited to poor time management skills, pressure from superiors and ones’ self to excel, and lack of creating new relationships with peers.
During this time of freedom from high expectations and demands that a student faces when entering college, he or she may find more free time to reflect on their life, build new relationships, develop stronger life skills such as cultural tolerance, and decision making (Catherine Coccia & Carol A. Darling, 2014). According to the journal “Having The Time Of Their Life” common stress inducers could be caused simply by personal characteristics, social interactions and personal behaviours. Personal characteristics such as gender and age have proven to be related to higher stress levels in females than males. Females tend to have
According to Lupien, McEwan, Gunnar, and Heim (2009), going off to college involves significant adjustments to their daily routines; sleeping and eating habits, time-management skills, and stress levels will be altered in one way or another. First-year students have to adjust to the new school environment, different social settings, and new schedules, all without the help and guidance from their parents, who have been there for them for eighteen years. Over 30% of college freshman report that they feel overwhelmed (Klainberg, Ewing, & Ryan, 2010), where some students even opt to work as they juggle their class and work schedules. Some students work at a job or study harder than others, but they are all trying to get degrees so maybe one day they will have meaningful and significant lives. It is a constant struggle for everyone who is trying desperately to make him or herself into a success. And every college student wants to be involved in society in a positive manner, allowing contribution of their ideals and values to others.
Although the stress of college students is largely present, it is just another part of college. The real epidemic here besides added pressure on female students is how students as a whole can reduce the amount of stress that is put on them by personal practices. The hardships that students are going through now will be prevalent in the future when they become very successful from all the aspects they were challenged
Leaving High School, I thought I was prepared to go into college. I knew how difficult college was going to be. So i told myself I would do my homework the day it was assigned, I would go to the tutors if i needed help, and I would study more to succeed. But one thing I did not prepare myself for was, how to overcome stress and anxiety. According to an article, “Stress in College: Experts Provide Tips to Cope” by Megan Reed, “…30% of students reported that stress had negatively affected their academic performance within the past year, and over 85% had felt overwhelmed by everything they had to do at some point within the past year.”(National Health Assessment) This report really captivated me because 30%
Its common knowledge that emerging adult college students can be under heavy amounts of both positive and negative stress. Especially because higher education can pose opportunities and risks. The purpose of the study done by Justin W. Peter, Stephen B. Hillman and Emma Van Hoet was to analyze how stress influenced the lives of emerging adults as well as whether or not they managed it effectively.
Stress is unavoidable, no matter the situation, location, or time; stress is always present. Stress is found in higher levels during the duration in which students attend college. It is predictably higher among college students, freshmans in particular, because of the extreme expectations set upon them by their parents and, of course, society. The need to please their parents, longing for success in life, and being able to sustain a reasonable income in the future, all of which falls into the hands of college students who are making critical decisions which may decide the outcome for a large portion of their lives. If these students end up hating their future jobs, the stress of having to go back into college to study for a new career
College should be the best four years of our lives. Instead studies are showing that students are showing record levels of stress in regards to college. Academics, finances, family issues, and concerns with finding a job after graduation top the list of stressors. The Michigan State University student newspaper, The Independent Voice (Feb. 2013) noted that “more than half of college students reported above average or
Are college students under stress? Wait, what is stress? Stress is considered a mental or emotional strain or tension that comes from very demanding circumstances. School, relationship, family, finances and job related stress are examples of some of the stressors that college students commonly face.
Young adults experience a significant life transition when graduate from high school and enter college. During this transition, it may be the first time they are away from their friends and families. Additionally, it is a time where they have to learn how to live independently and become more self-sufficient. A common mindset in college is you have to receive exceptional grades as well as attain the best internship or work experience to succeed in life after college. This mindset causes a variety of academic, personal, work, and social pressure put upon college students. However, some individuals do not cope well with this type of pressure and feel overwhelmed. In some individuals, the overwhelming and anxious feeling does not go away and disrupts
The research topic of the connection between students who are in college and the level of stress they inquire financially and generally has had a huge impact on society. College is a very essential tool for life. College is meant to learn and experience a variety of techniques to use in your everyday life. On the other hand, college can become a very stressful place, whether it’s because of your financial status or in general. The increase in responsibilities after transitioning from a young adolescent to an adult is a cause of stress. There are two different sources of stress, external stress and internal stress. External stress is getting a bad grade on an assignments/test or relationship problems. Internal stress are motivators that put high expectations on one’s self to accomplish or achieve something. Financial stress is worrying about how you are going to pay for something and where you will get the money to pay for it. In academic communities financial stress can cause low performance in school work. Also, stress can cause the low rate of attendance in the academic communities. The amount of workload assignment wise and job wise can significantly bring stress due to the balance between the two. A solution for financial stress and general stress could be to make more scholarships and grants available to students, and find ways to relieve stress.
A young college student sits at a mundane wooden desk. He’s frantically working on an essay that he has already spent days writing. He needs to finish this English essay so he can move on to work regarding the speech outline that is due later in the evening. In addition to that, he also has two tests the next day that require a few hours of review each. He never pictured college to be a cakewalk but never did he imagine it would take this much to earn a decent grade. This is the reality for most college students, especially ones in their first year. It 's a difficult struggle but everyone that 's been through college has been here before: cramming for tests, spending hours writing essays, reading chapter after chapter of thousand page books, the late nights studying… The stress is an atrocious beast everyone with a degree has had to battle. Stress is commonplace among college students, especially ones fresh out of high school due to the newly found freedoms they enjoy conflicting with the colossal amount of responsibility gained at the same rate. How does all of this stress affect the process of learning?
Stress is no new phenomenon. It’s been around as long as man and has captivated scholars and physicians alike. With the growing demand for degrees in the professional world comes the growth of the number of college students. The relationship between stress and college students has become the subject of on-going research. Several studies show that stress in college students is increasing with time and the authors of those studies are attributing this to an increased number of students. Other research seems to indicate that it isn’t necessarily the stress that is increasing but the awareness of it. Increased awareness of stress, and its unique toll on individuals, allows colleges and students to recognize
In the research article by MacNair and Elliott, it is stated that college students are more prone to stress (D’Zurilla & Sheedy, 1991) because of the transitional nature of college life (Towbes & Cohen, 1996). The main contributing factors to the stress is being away from home for the first time, trying hard to maintain academic achievement and adjusting to a new social environment. How they handle the stress will affect the way they make decisions and solve problems that arises as they go through college life.
Over the years many studies have been conducted to determine what creates stress and how college students can cope with stress. Stressors in a student’s life can be created through personal, educational and social experiences. A student faces many experiences while transitioning from high school, to college, and into adulthood. These experiences include: living arrangements, personal finances, important career decisions, experiences of failure, interpersonal relationships, and personal finances. These stressors involved with daily hassles can create an unhealthy high pressure environment which makes stress for college students inevitable. During one study, researchers found that physical activity throughout a student’s life can increase one’s stress tolerance and positively cope with stressors (Bland, Melton, Bigham, & Welle, 2012).
Stress can define as Balancing classes, tests, projects, extra-curricular activities and work is enough to make anyone feel overwhelmed, especially with final exams right around the corner. Having stress in your life is unavoidable, but there are steps students can take to mitigate its effects on their lives and health. Going off to college involves significant adjustments to student daily routine; student sleeping and eating habits, time-management skills, and stress levels will be altered in one way or another. And even though it’s been barely three months since you left high school, you are now expected to be more independent and self-sufficient. Adapting to this new life stage and the inevitable stress that comes with
Stress has affected a major part of everyone’s life, especially students. According to a study in UCLA, 30% of college students