Graduating college is the new American Dream. The Millennial generation is the most educated in American history, with over 43 percent having a bachelors degree or higher. Many people in America of all ages have begun to crave higher education and better jobs. Everyone knows you have to climb a mountain to achieve your goals, but the college mountain is getting pretty steep. With mounting stress, anxiety, depression, and suicides, 62 percent of college students withdraw due to mental illnesses. It seems the price of college has become more than just a monetary amount.
30 percent of college freshman experience stress, in comparison to the 16 percent in 1985. The increase is due to the fast pace world created by technology and the new definition of success. Assignments are now due online, multiple emails are received a day, there's just no break thanks to the easy communication created through technology. Internet often goes out for hours to weeks at a time at my college; with assignments being due online with no way of doing them, the stress tends to build from all the grades missed. Technology is not the only part of this new fast paced world causes stress on today's youth. Recently, the definition of success for youth has changed. Many don't believe themselves to be a success unless they're a millionaire, been published and cited over 100,000 times, and be famous for their achievements all by age 30. We have built some pretty high goals and not given ourselves a lot of time to achieve them in.
Anxiety is another big problem college students are suffering from. Students are trying to juggle school, family, friends, clubs, sports, and work. Test anxiety hits everyone, but a test in college could mean the difference between passing or failing a class: that's a lot of pressure placed on an already over loaded student. If you're wondering what the difference between stress and anxiety are, you're not alone. Many people confuse stress and anxiety; anxiety layers fear on top of all of your existing baggage. The fear of failure felt by college students due to the high levels of anxiety they feel lead to nervous break downs.
Depression is a serious issue for many college students. Lack of sleep, poor eating habits, building stress, and lack of exercise allow for depression to creep into over 75 percent of the college population in America. Only nine percent of college students with depression seek medical help, the rest fight it quietly alone. Depression sucks the energy out of a person; many students fall behind in their studies, and many fail classes (which only leads to deeper depression). Young people with depression are five times more likely to commit suicide than adults. Four out of five college students who contemplate or commit suicide show clear signs. In America, more than 1,000 suicides take place on college campuses each year; becoming the third leading cause of death of people ages 15-24. We are literally loosing lives due to the pressures of college.
Unfortunately, many students cannot turn to family to lean on. Many parents don't understand the amount of stress college students are under. This is especially true for first generation students whose parents don't understand the amount of work piled on a college student's desk, and the amount of pressure from society placed upon them. Between stress, anxiety, depression, and the rising costs, college is literally killing us, and to many of us, it seems as if there is no life raft coming to the rescue.
Tschüss!
Statistics retrieved from:
http://www.emorycaresforyou.emory.edu/resources/su...
http://www.stress.org/college-students/
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