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Causes of depression among college students
Causes of depression among college students
Causes of depression among college students
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In his essay, “ Students in Shock” (2012), John Keilmayer lists some of the causes for student shock. The first example Keilmayer says, is an attractive, intelligent twenty-year-old college junior at a state university named Lisa. She was a straight A student in High School and a member of the basketball and softball team. She had no problems in High School, but now that she got in college she has changed her major four times and has to work two jobs to pay her tuition. She now suffers from sleeping and eating disorders and has considered of taking her own life.
In this society, students are constantly struggling with stress. The students in this generation have more anxiety, and higher stress levels than previous generations. Alexandra Robbins, the author of “The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids,” developed student’s stress as the theme throughout the book to put emphasis on how the rigor levels of schools increased causing students to overachieve. Yet while overachieving school goals, it led to student’s stress trying to juggle school and life at the same time while trying to get into a prestigious university. Julie, the school’s superstar who does it all, undergoes under the same stress everyone has.
Beth Howard’s article from the U.S. News and World Report talks greatly about how mental health and anxiety is becoming a big issue on university campuses. For many decades, U.S. News and World Report has been a well known news source because of it’s impressive ranking and annual reports of colleges and graduate schools. Howard outlines what certain prestigious colleges around the nation are doing to combat the issue; such as Harvard, Cornell, and Columbia, as well as many state universities. She reiterates ideas like meditation, counseling and even playing with dogs that are helping students cope with stress and anxiety. Howard also brings up many important factors that play a role in students’ anxiety levels and incorporates them together
Anna Quindlen in the article, “The C Word in the Hallway” argues that mental illness don’t get enough awareness or help that it actually needs. Quindlen supports her argument by using similes, tone and bias’ to state that many teachers are not trained to recognize mental illness and so some just dismiss it and so that leaves “over two thirds of the mentally disturbed children without any help”. Insurance also does not aid in covering the costs because “health insurance plans do not provide coverage for necessary treatment”, or if they do then they think that they should “penalize those who need a psychiatrist instead of an oncologist”. The author's purpose in writing this was to inform people about the scary reality that many kids and teens face today and to argue that it is nothing to joke about and that it needs to be taken seriously.
While the ever increasing pressures and cost of a college education seem to be a recent event, they problems have persisted for many decades. In 1979, William Zinsser wrote “College Pressures” in order to portray the daily struggles of college students and argue how students see college differently in the modern era. Zinsser stresses how college has changed from being an institute purely focused on higher learning to one of almost strictly vocational purposes. He argues that modern students equate college degrees more with higher paying jobs than as a symbol of knowledge in a specific field, and that these pressures to succeed greatly impact the student’s health. Through my own college experiences, I can certainly verify that college is more
(Murray 245) This all encompasses the fact that those seeking an education don’t really value the part where they are being taught a continuation of their liberal education from their elementary, middle
The stresses and strains that are put on young adults today is getting out of hand. Between the work that school demands from students to the cost it takes to put one self through school is unreasonable. The dignity of students is at stake. Students are not only stressed and constantly worried about the work it takes to pass classes and graduate, but they are also stressed with the cost it takes to simply stay enrolled in their field of study if they are in college or maintain a scholarship. With the great power of education comes great responsibility.
It is clear that people much younger than Mr. Carr, who is 59 years old, would not be able to relate to his article’s message because it is written about people who are much older than them. Many young adults would be willing to think, “Oh it’s just this old guy having memory or attention issues”, which is possible because younger adult perceive that they are in their prime. If Carr included citations of young people experiencing a lack of focus when trying to concentrate on a longer piece of reading, it would be more convincing to that audience. It is in the younger generation’s tendency to relate strongly to their peers to fit in. If a younger reader consumes this article he may think that since someone else my age is like this, maybe I am as well.
Mental health hides in the shadows of over 1 out of 5 Americans. Obama, our former president, wrote and spoke a speech to help citizens of America realize President Obama used many different types of rhetorical devices and style techniques in his speech called “Reduce the stigma, You are Not alone”. Obama’s speech become very impactful to those who are struggling with mental illnesses in the shadows as well as with those who are not aware of how much is actually affected by mental illnesses. Obama uses a lot of Pathos as well as logos within his speech. This makes the speech become very impactful because with a little bit of emotion and a little bit of logic this could go a long way.
Depression is the number one mental illness on college campuses, something that many people do not know. The stress that college students are placed under can cause depression and other mental health issues, such as anxiety, eating disorders, self harm, and other clinical mental health conditions. The majority of college campuses have counseling centers for students who need them, but they are underused due to social stigmas against seeking help. A PSA consisting of a thirty second video and a poster was created, using the influential psychological principles of social proof, similarity, vividness, high controlling language, and scarcity. The goal of this PSA is to inform people about the prevalence of depression and other mental health conditions
James (2017) was formed to appeal to the general public to inform future and current college students about the struggle of college life. She uses the life story of a recently graduated college student to connect to the target group of people. She states, “Amy Ebeling struggled with anxiety and depression throughout college, as her moods swung from high to low, but she resisted help until all came crashing down senior year (James 2017).” This story helped Ms. James hooking readers by providing an intriguing story of a helpless college student. She than provides facts after facts leaving no room for debate, “More than 75 percent of all mental health conditions begin before age of 24: collected from 139 institutions, 26 percent of students who sought help said they had intentionally hurt themselves, 33.2 percent had considered suicide (James 2017).”
The determination to live comes from human nature. But the urge of giving up when we come across a difficult problem is also a part of human nature. There a few people in this world that have the characteristics of resilience. As author Kendra Cherry describes them, "People that are able to keep their cool have what psychologists call resilience, or an ability to cope with problems and setbacks" (Source A; Cherry, 1). An example of someone who has the characteristics of resilience is a bombardier name Louis (Louie) Zamperini.
Resilience is known as bouncing back from the adversities and bringing in strength to cope to difficulties. Adversities happen at personal, community and organisational level. Resilience allows the person to come out of the adversity, rather than staying with it and to move forward further. This is a way of maintaining positive mental health and maintaining one’s own well being in the midst of adverse conditions. It enables a person to maintain positive health in the midst of challenges (Mowbray, 2011).
Although students will face various challenges in college, these challenges have solutions and ways to cope with them, thus these challenges will lead them to success. Notably, having a balance in life is a real benefit for anyone. It brings a type of peace and serenity into a person’s life that cannot be found without it. Thus, for college students, this is almost
They also believe that children and teenagers may not handle learning about mental health the correct way. Those who argue against teaching about mental health in schools argue that “[educators] are causing widespread confusion among the majority when we engage [children] in discourse about mental health” and that they “might be encouraged to pathologize their emotions” after watching a video. (Gill n.p.). The author of the article is claiming that only a minority of people are affected by mental illness. She is also arguing that children might think of their emotions as “wrong” even though they are not, suggesting that they cannot handle learning about mental illnesses.
