Mental Health Summary

Mental health is an issue that affects all college students. Mental health is a broad term

that includes a person's emotional, psychological, and social well-being. A person's mental health

has an effect on every aspect of a person's life. This is because emotions rule how we spend our

days. Whether we feel motivated for the day or if we have the energy to socialize. With proper

mental health a person can have a well balanced life with work, school, and a personal life.

However with poor mental health this balancing act becomes a much harder and daunting task.

Unfortunately poor mental health is not uncommon in college students. According to

Director of Student Counseling Services at Northern Kentucky University, Amy Clark about one

in four students on college campuses struggle with mental health concerns. The large national

samples through the Healthy Minds Study (2019) reveal that 39% of college students struggle

with anxiety, depression, eating disorders, self-injury, or suicidality (Bischof and all 2020).Thes

mental health struggles can stem from various stressors such as the pressure to succeed, financial

worries, uncertainty in the future, increased technology and social media use, as well as genetics.

These types of stressors define the worries of a typical college student. With student loans being

expensive, social media always portray the perfect ‘easy’ life, and the constant pressure to get

good grades and to succeed college students always have something to weigh on them.

A few of the common mental illnesses for students are anxiety, mood disorders, and

eating disorders. Along with these suicide is the second leading cause for the death of college

students. The rates of suicide in young adults have trippled since the 1950s (The Light Program

2020). While suicide itself is not an illness it the most tragic outcome possible posible. Suicide

leaves a wake of pain for all of those who are connected. While the statistics show that suicide is

worsening it is a controversal topic on if the mental health of college students is worsening.

Previous generations had the belief that they needed to go through everything alone and that

asking for help is a sign of weakness, while the recent generations have gotten rid of the stigma

surrounding mental health issues and believe in accepting their feelings and reaching out to

others. Due to this, an argument can be made on whether college students' mental health is truly

going up or if the students are just more comfortable reporting and receiving help for it.

The problem is that teachers are not prepared to help their students that are struggling. A

survey at Boston University showed that out of 1,685 faculty members 8/10 teachers spoke 1:1

with students about mental health and less than 30% of the faculty members said they have

received training from their institutions in how to have such discussions (June 2021). This will

cause students to not receive the help they need and possibly cause them to think no one can help

them. To combat this, teachers need to receive professional training on how to handle these

situations. Teachers should also implement mental health days, allowing their students to take off

from school if their mental health is suffering and they need to recover.

Some colleges have recognized this decline in mental health and made efforts to help

their students. Western Michigan University implemented semester-long lecture series for the

honors students teaching them about managing their stressors and the idea that being imperfect is

ok. Meanwhile the University of Massachusetts created a club to destigmatize mental health

called Active Minds ( UWIRE Text 2021)

 Works Cited

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