This article was shared in an academic group I'm a part of on a social networking site... it's framing is within the Canadian Higher Education setting, but the message about student mental health is relevant for all.
Here are a couple of thoughts from the article worth sharing if you can't take the time to read the entire piece:
"To fully understand the present crisis, one has to appreciate a fundamental and often overlooked fact: higher education is not what it used to be. Not only do w...
This article was shared in an academic group I'm a part of on a social networking site... it's framing is within the Canadian Higher Education setting, but the message about student mental health is relevant for all.
Here are a couple of thoughts from the article worth sharing if you can't take the time to read the entire piece:
"To fully understand the present crisis, one has to appreciate a fundamental and often overlooked fact: higher education is not what it used to be. Not only do we have a more diverse student body with equally diverse psychiatric needs, we also have an academic culture that has changed profoundly in the past six decades, making the university experience more stressful than it once was. The classic liberal conception of postsecondary institutions as places where young people take a kind of sabbatical from life—read the great books, engage in endless debates, and learn to see themselves as citizens—has given way to a new model, more narrowly vocational in focus."
"By prioritizing high achievers, Henderson argues, universities are selecting not only for diligent candidates but also for those who view scholastic success as central to their identities. For such students, a bad grade can be destabilizing. When that grade appears on an exam worth 80 percent of a final course mark, or when it comes from a harried teaching assistant who doesn’t offer in-depth feedback, students can feel like they are losing a game whose rules were never explained. Imagine being told all your life that you are ahead of the pack and that you must stay there, both to secure a stable future and to get a return on the investments that family members or granting agencies have made on your behalf. Then, imagine falling behind, for reasons you don’t understand, at the precise moment when staying on top feels more critical than ever before. Furthermore, imagine that you are contending with profound loneliness, past trauma, and financial insecurity, all while working a part-time job with the usual mix of erratic hours."
"Such stressors can lead to sleep disruption, irregular eating, and substance abuse—all of which correlate with mental illness—or they can trigger preexisting psychiatric conditions. They can deplete reserves of neurochemicals, like dopamine and serotonin, needed to sustain a sense of well-being, or they can flood the brain and body with cortisol, the stress hormone, which, in excess, can push people into near-constant states of anxiety, making it difficult to conceptualize daily challenges in a proportionate or healthy way. They can also lead to identity confusion and an acute sense of shame."
Inside the Mental Health Crisis Facing College and University Students by Simon Lewsen :
https://thewalrus.ca/inside-the-mental-health-crisis-facing-college-and-university-students/?fbclid=IwAR12PokSFpCrBo1NmtpNYoGEohKf3csYHQc9X8LwFAdNPTtBF_zIRbEqwhs
