Students readjust to university lifestyle
School is starting once again, causing the summer blues to set in for some USU students. Transitioning from the carelessness of summer to the responsibilities of school and living away from home can cause unwanted stress.
However, there are ways to cope with the stress and organize a schedule that will give students time to get work done and even manage some free time.
“Outside of classes and studying, my time will probably be filled with things like student involvement, church activities and work,” said Kristy Scott, a senior studying family consumer and human development. “I like to stay busy, but I’m not worried because things always work out.”
“My time at work and my needed study time may overlap, like if I have a test the next day and have to work all night, that could be stressful, but I just like to accept things as they are and do the best I can with each situation.” Scott said. “Take it a day at a time. Also, remembering past times when I felt stressed by my work load but was always able to pull it off makes me feel like maybe I can do that again this time.”
This may be a time of stress and transition, but for others, excitement takes over.
David Bush, director of counseling and psychological services, said he notices a lot of excitement and positive energy around this time on campus and it’s one of the reasons he loves working here.
“I think it can be both positive stress in terms of excitement and expectation and hope for a new year,” he said. “For somebody who’s brand new, or a returning student, it can probably be fairly overwhelming to take on the responsibility of finances, scheduling and transportation. Usually the distress starts to kick in around midterms.”
Jake Lane, a junior studying business, expressed his anticipation to get back into the social scene. He said he can’t wait to reunite with his friends, go to football games and just be a part of college life again after spending his summer at home in California.
He also said he writes out his schedule in order to stay organized, giving himself exact times when he should be doing things to help him balance his free time and school work.
“I had a job last year and it affected my school a little, just because there were a few occasions where I couldn’t get work off to study for a test or put in some extra hours at the library,” he said.
Balancing school and a job can be enough to cause any student to be strained, Lane said.
Bush teaches a workshop several times each semester on how to cope with stress. He said the first step is to identify an individual’s source of the stress – whether it’s not having enough time in the day to get everything done, problems with finances or a job that overlaps school time. Once a person has identified the source, they need to figure out if the stress is causing internal pain, most often depicted as headaches, stomach aches or back pain.
The next step is understanding the signal your body is giving you, Bush said. Students tend to try to numb that signal with distractions like Facebook and other social media, as well as overeating, instead of doing what may be less pleasant. If the problem is avoided, it won’t get any better.
“We teach how to take things on, how to get a handle on it,” he said. “We either write it down or we talk to somebody about it. We accept the things that we can’t change, and we take responsibility for things that we can do something about. It’s as simple as just taking things one at a time so you don
‘t feel so overwhelmed.”
Bush said there are several things students can do to easily get back into their college routine.
Just as people make New Year’s resolutions in January, students can make fall resolutions to motivate them to go to class and improve with each semester. What the university’s counseling and psychological services want to do is help students to set realistic expectations and focus on making one or two small changes so they don’t get overwhelmed.
“I think if there were two words that I would use, that I would encourage students to consider, are moderation and balance,” explained Bush. “No matter what they do, and what their goals are for this fall, that they do everything in moderation and balance; making sure they get involved to a healthy degree rather than overboard.”
Bush said it is important to take care of oneself physically, mentally, emotionally, socially and spiritually. He said the simplest thing to do is getting up in the morning at a decent time. This leaves time to get in some type of exercise and a healthy breakfast, as well as allowing a little time for meditation.
Bush emphasized the importance of getting into a daily routine in order to obtain balance in our lives. Although stress can cause bad days for any student, Bush said it can also be a good thing.
“Rather than be afraid of stress, realize that a certain amount of stress is healthy and motivates us to get things done,” he said. “If we didn’t deal with any anxiety or stress, we would just be complacent.”
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