“Please forgive me Mom and Dad. I take back everything I said about wanting to get out of the house. Let me come home, I’m begging you!” I never thought I’d hear so many freshmen say they couldn’t wait to go home and relax. This is college! I thought it was supposed to be the best time of our lives? According to The New York Times, not really.
A recent study by the Times showed that the level of stress found in college freshmen has reached an all-time high this year, and who can blame them? Stress in high school was limited. We worried about who to sit with in the cafeteria and how to get a good GPA, but we could crawl into our private caves (aka bedrooms) at the end of every single day.
In college, not only do we get to stress out about who to sit with in the cafeteria and how to get a good GPA, but we also get to stress about roommates, hallmates, lack of sleep, hygiene, food, extracurricular activities, friendships, relationships, hook-ups, sexuality, parties and the future.
We’ve spent our entire lives cradled in our parents’ arms, and then one day we’re chucked out of them into a dark pit that we need to climb out of on our own. Try living five feet away from a perfect stranger 24/7; try getting enough sleep for your 8 a.m. class while your neighbors are singing Journey at the top of their lungs; try getting up the nerve to knock on your neighbors’ door and ask them to shut up; and try taking a dump in a public bathroom where everyone can hear the echoing plops and smell the rancid smells…you know it’s true.
Whether or not we think we’re stressed, our bodies definitely are. Our bodies go from eight hours of sleep, germ-free floors and home cooked meals to four hours of sleep, sicknesses galore and cheap food that definitely didn’t come out of mom’s oven. Our bodies cannot handle the sickness, lack of sleep and poor food quality when it’s busy battling the stress in our brains.
When we go into college, we expect to have fun and, more importantly, find a “mate.” So even after a week of classes and homework are over, we are stressed out with what parties we can get into and what people we will flirt with. Unfortunately, this situation is all games, and freshmen rarely get what they want out of a weekend night. We are bound to have our heads in the toilet, regret a hook up or stay in our room wishing we had plans at least once in the four years here. What mostly happens on the weekends is that the boys get trashed and fulfill their “needs” while the girls end up crying on someone’s shoulder because their expectations are too high. (One thing I’ve learned is that no guy has the intention of being your soul mate when you’re a freshman girl)
Another source of stress is academics. Is it sad that I spent a good forty minutes searching for graduate programs yesterday? As Jason Ebbeling, director of residential education at Southern Oregon University said, “Students worry that even with a college degree they won’t find a job that pays more than minimum wage… they’re thinking they’ll need to get into an M.B.A. program or Ph.D. program.” Is our major going to get us anywhere? Can we find a job that buys us a Ferrari? Can we stay in college forever and hide from the real world…please?
Although I’m still learning, I advise all stressed out students to focus on themselves. I’m not saying you should be a selfish jerk; just don’t sell your soul away. Make it the semester of [insert your name here]. Give yourself time away from people. Meditate, exercise and do things that make you happy. College is a crazy trip, but you WILL survive.
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