Depression & College Students
What is Civic Engagment
What is civic engagement? From The New York Times they stated, “ Civic engagement means working to make a difference in the civic life of our communities and developing the combination of knowledge, skills, values and motivation to make that difference. It means promoting the quality of life in a community, through both political and non-political processes.” Another definition on civic engagement by Wikipedia stated, “ Civic engagement or civic participation is any individual or group activity addressing issues of public concern.Citizens acting alone or together to protect public values or make a change or difference in the community are common types of civic engagement. Civic engagement includes communities working together in both political and non-political actions. The goal of civic engagement is to address public concerns and promote the quality of the community.” To me civic engagement means making a difference in the community whether it be with a group or alone. It is your job to see and develop skills in trying to make a difference on issues that cause concern in our community. Taking a step forward into public concern.The topic I chose was the effect of college and how that might result to depression. I feel like this topic is very important because I can honestly say a lot of students that I met throughout the years have dealt with this issue once they hit college. I have friends, even some classmates who have had mental breakdowns, lack of sleep, poor eating habits, anxiet attacks, ect. all due to depression. It is not healthy at all for our minds.
Problem Defintion
The effect of college students on depression affects our community for many reasons. To begin let us discuss the topic of depression overall. Depression is a mood disorder that causes a persistant feeling of being sad and a loss of intrest in things. Have you ever noticed a change in behavior when students hit college? This could be because some students expreience this particular mood disorder. Now you might think, what causes these college students to become this way? It starts off from the transition of high school to college. Students may feel the pressure of finding their career in order to become sucessful, having to find a decent job to fincially support themsleves or family, the feeling of being overwhlemed and stressed due to the amount of school work, loniness, and many other factors. According to the article Depression,anxiety and academic stress amoung college students it states, " Higher education is a stressful period in students' life which they need to cope with due to various reasons as living away from families, a heavy syllabus, and inefficiency in higher education programs. Depression, anxiety and academic stress amoung college students are a cause of concern." When students first reach college they are introduced to a new way of life ( in terms of an adrupt change from high school) along with a new way of thinking. In college there is a significant amount of pressure to do well from a parent or just beating yourself up period. The pressures of constanly hearing that you need a degree to be successful or the amount of money that college is so you can't afford the mess up. College students are the future so of course there is so much pressue on the student to get their degree. The fact of having to finish on time, the fear of failing, the idea of trying to figure out what exactly they want to do, and the pressue of academic excellence along with the emotional probelms such as not being able to think properly, worrying too much which result to questioning your life and worth living. "Anxiety and Depression are common mental health problems amoung student population.At any given time 25% of student population report symtoms of depression(Bhujade, pg.748)." Students react to college differently and some were not prepared for the college life. Students begin to see their education as a challege which causes high stress levels and can bring them a sense of fear and an increased capacity to learn. Education is now seen as a threat and can lead one to become helplessness. As read in the article finanical sitituations can lead to another form of stress for a college student. One might feel pressured to find a job right away after high school. Especially those coming from low income communities. "Low family income, student attitude towards opting for a particular course,who described their home as unhappy positively correlated with mental morbidity. The dissatifaction arising from living arrangemtns, poor participation in extracurricular activities,poor social relationships, poor staff conatct are all significantly related to high mental morbodity (Bhujade, pg.749)." This can cause pressure for one because they feel like they need to be responsible to some source of income to help their family or to not be in debt because for some students college can be expensive and some may not have those resourceful resources or knowledge to help. The results to depression and axiety can result for students to have academic probelms and emotional probelms. Academic problems that result to difficulty in concentrating and remembering. The fact that you can't study properly and emotional probelms that cause students to be sad, be worried, and feeling hopeless. In the article, Independent and relative effects of stress, depressive symptoms, and affect on college students' daily health behavior by Elizabeth D. Dalton it focuses on the amount of stress and depressive symptoms that are associated with maladaptive health behavior practices such as the following: unhealthy eating, sedentary behavior, lack of sleep, and substance use. Our everyday life influences our choices and behaviors. If college causes our depression and stress of course we are going to repsond a way and behave a certain way. If we lack certain resources from being effected than those following listed above will result to those. As stated in the article, "Depressive symptoms and stress may affect health behavior engagement for a variety of reasons. One way of understanding this effect is that engagement in health behaviors represents attempts to cope with stress or depressive symptoms; health behaviors such as eating or drinking alcohol may promote emotion regulation and reduce distress associated with stressful circumstances and depressive symptoms." This is a very serious matter because Kids so young can become addicted to the alchol or lose a ton amount of weight from not eating. Our health is super important and if we aren't right in the head mentally and physically we tend to lose hope and start thinking of life negative. Negativity can lead to serious health probelms and even suicidal thoughts. As resulted to a possible end solution it is extremely encouraged for students to seek mentorship and counseling along with health education programs.
Statistics & Data
Depressive/Ptsd/Drinking Abuse Data Sleep Time Data
What we have to say on this issue and why it's important
"Hi my name is Jose Martinez and after reading the effect of college and it students I can honestly say it had an effect on me mentally.Well transitioning into college I didn’t really know what I wanted to Major so that alone I already felt like I was behind. It would stress me out because I felt alone and left out because there was already people who had it all planned out. College definitely has been intimidating and to be honest everyone learns differntly. From my experince I am a slow learner and people around me were just so smart and it made me feel less of myself. I felt that pressure where "ohh you have to be out in two years" so it made me stressed out more. I sometimes felt as if college wasn’t for me because I was struggling and I felt so low of myself which caused me to be depressed. I felt like I wasn’t smart enough to be here or good enough."
Reason why topic is important to me
This topic is very important to me because throughout all my years in being in college I have struggled with loads of stress, axiety, and loniness that caused my depression. There were many times were I felt like giving up and just couldn't do it anymore. Thank goodness for my mentors who have helped me get through the situation and still continue to do so because some days I am doing good and other days it randomly hits me. The feeling of being overwhelmed, stressed, anxiety, even the change in environment hit me dramatically and it is and was a feeling I never wanted to feel. Deppression effected not just me but the people I truly cared about. I started taking out my anger/stress on my own people. I started being more distant from my friends and lost a couple. I started eating less and lost so much weight. I lacked sleep and would constantly be tired. I overworked myself with the amount of work I was doing and lost passion on the own things I was interested in. The way your mind shifts and starts to think become negative all the time. The fact that you are always sad or cry at random times is not healthy. I would cry at random times due to the amount of work or having to write things I wasn't really intrested in. I feel like college pressured me and it still continues to do so. I am getting close to almost graduating but growing up scares me and I feel like I have to have my life figured out as soon as possible. As a result depression even starts messing with your social life and your ability to be creative and be free. Every since high school I was always a very artsy and creative person. I was the social butterfly and was always happy. There was no type of worries and every since college I feel like it draged me down from the loads of work, the feeling of being overwhelmed with the amount information I would have to learn and study, and just feeling alone. I feel like with all the classes I took since freshman year I can't and couldn't be fully 100 percent on the things I love. No matter what there is always something due. College personally took me away from my art; I feel I can never be on my creative side without having something to study for or an essay due, ect. I don't feel myself anymore and it makes me sad because I feel I can never be that person I once was. Depression is just a sad and messed up feeling in general and it makes me sad just writing about it. I hope one day I can truly be happy and not have to worry about school essays, a crazy syllabus, or the loads of work again. I hope one day to be the social butterfly I once was. I hope one day I could be the creative Brianna I used to be because she had so much passion.
Additional and Helpful information
College Depression can lead to the following:
-Suicidal Thoughts
-Anger management
-Lack of Sleep
-General Stress
-Anxiety
-Feeling of worry
-Constantly being sad
-Loneliness and homesickness
-Difficulties with alcohol or drugs use
-Difficulties to focus on school and work
Ways To Help with college depression (from my personal experince):
-Seek Counseling
-Seek for peace to the mind and allow yourself to practice mindfulness excercises
-Don't be afraid to see a doctor and ask for medication options
-Engage in Psychotherapy
-Spending time in outdoor quite peace
-Eat more healthy
-Talk to others
-Avoid drug use and alchol
-Sleep more but not too much
How To Beat Depression as a College Student
Citing Resources:
Civic Engagement Defintions sites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civic_engagement
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/ref/college/collegespecial2/coll_aascu_defi.html
Two or more Scholarly Sites
Bhujade, Vijay Mahadeorao. “Depression, Anxiety and Academic Stress among College Students: A Brief Review.” Indian Journal of Health & Wellbeing, vol. 8, no. 7, July 2017, pp. 748–751. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx direct=true&db=a9h&AN=125123631&site=ehost-live.
Dalton, Elizabeth D., and Constance L. Hammen. “Independent and Relative Effects of Stress, Depressive Symptoms, and Affect on College Students’ Daily Health Behaviors.” Journal of Behavioral Medicine, vol. 41, no. 6, Dec. 2018, pp. 863–874. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s10865-018-9945-4.
Ranasinghe, Abigail Nirandhi, et al. “Awareness of Effects of Sleep Deprivation among College Students.” Drug Invention Today, vol. 10, no. 9, Sept. 2018, pp. 1806–1809. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=131123668&site=ehost-live.
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