College Students Under Stress

Is emerging into adulthood really stressful? It is said that college students often run into stress. Between finding out what they want to be in life, preparing for a big test, and working around with their schedule; College is a big step that not everyone is built for. It is a time in life where everyone is finding out their true identities. Most college students stress over the independence and grades. Being alone with no parents guiding you through things is one of the biggest things college students try to adjust to. Having the independence to choose between parties and work, without your parents telling you work is first is something that college students often take advantage of. When it comes to college, parties come around a lot often which students tend to put before their school work leading them to miss class the next morning, or fall behind in classes which could cause stress to build up. The biggest issue dealing with college students going through stress is them turning to drugs and alcohol. Another issue is stress leading to depression, anxiety, illness, and the decreasing of life satisfaction. All of these problems could lead to the isolation of a person and then giving up.

The article “Stressed College Students” talks about stress, coping with stress, and sex differences. During college stress is reported for 52% of college students. It is often said that the vulnerability of stress increases due to the transition from adolescence to adulthood. The experience of growth and change throughout a student’s experience in college are accompanied  by stress. When it comes to academics, social relationships, daily hassles, finances, and familial relationships they all play a huge role with the stress of a college student, which can sometimes lead to depression and anxiety. Coping with stress includes emotion-focused strategies such as expressing your feelings and problem-focused strategies such as action and planning. When it comes to sex differences college women reported greater use of emotion-focused strategies including seeking emotional support, expressing feelings, acceptance,and positive reframing than men. College men however, reported greater use of strategies such as mental disengagement through the use of alcohol than college women. It is said that “College students who reported higher levels of stress also consumed a greater amount of junk food, were less likely to exercise.”

In conclusion this article was overall pretty good. This article provided lots of information about the stress of a college student. Although, it could have provided a little more information on ways to decrease stress levels. This article is also lengthy with some information that is not very useful but, if that information was taken out this article would be much better. The information provided about what college women and men turn to under stress I found to be very much true. I agree with the fact that coping with stress includes expressing the way you feel it could decrease the rates of a college student’s depression. This article also deals with alot of percentages and numbers which could’ve been replaced with something like a graph instead.Close to the end of the article there was a paragraph based on the participants in college; which I found had nothing to do with the stress of college students. I also found the fact that women express their feelings more than men which is why they stress more to be true, and also that most men turn to alcohol instead of expressing their feelings which is also proven to be true.  Alexus is an 18 year old freshman who attends school at The University of Alabama. She is very far away from home and not use to all the freedom that she now has. Also the high school she attended did not assign as much work as she now gets assigned in college. Adjusting to making her own decisions and working around her schedule she is lost on how to handle everything. Other than those problems she has also lost her bestfriend over an argument.Not knowing how to deal with everything at once she begins to stress and falls into depression. According to Ruby R. Brougham, Christy M. Zail, Celeste M, Mendoza, and Janine R. Miller, authors of the article “ Stressed College Students. Alexus should use the emotion-focused strategy and seek emotional support. She should also turn to problem-focused strategies by getting everything planned out so that she doesn’t fall behind on things.