Correction: The original version of this article’s headline contained an error. Emotional health for first-year students it at a record low.
With high school behind her, Katya Schoenberg is looking forward to four years of living in the moment.
Unlike in high school, when students were forced adhere to a standardized curriculum, Schoenberg said she now has more freedom to choose classes she is interested in, giving her more command over her emotional well-being.
“Having control over my own education in college allows me to choose the things I want that make me happy,” said Schoenberg, a first-year international development studies student.
But Schoenberg may be an exception to the rule. The emotional health of first-year college students nationwide is at a record low, according to the UCLA Cooperative Institutional Research Program’s latest freshman survey. In addition, students report that they are coming into college increasingly overburdened with work, with twice as many female students feeling this way.
If students are already overwhelmed coming into their first year, faculty and administrators should expect to see more evidence of stress on students, such as poorer time management decisions, high alcohol consumption and lower academic motivation, according to a statement by John Pryor, lead author of the report and director of the program.
The survey was administered to about 200,000 first-year students in the U.S. at 279 colleges. Most of the surveys were given during summer orientation sessions, said Dr. Linda DeAngelo, co-author of the report and assistant director for research at the program.
Although the percentage of students indicating they were above average or in the highest 10th percentile of emotional health has gradually been slipping since the survey began in 1985, last year’s 3.4 percent drop was significant.
According to the researchers, difficult economic times still played a pivotal role in shaping student expectations for college. This year’s first-year students were especially hard hit by the downturn.
“These students spent the large majority of their time in high school during the recession,” DeAngelo said. Consequently, this group of students was more likely to request student loans and more likely to have “major” financial concerns about financing their education.
The survey also found that a record 4.9 percent of students reported that their fathers were unemployed, while 8.6 percent of students reported unemployed mothers. Higher unemployment rates among parents were linked to increased financial worries among their students, according to the survey.
Chris Lee, a first-year neuroscience student, said he agrees that the state of the economy and financial concerns have put an additional strain on his college plans.
“I want to graduate earlier so my parents don’t have to pay the extra cost of tuition,” Lee said.
To that end, he is taking 18 units this quarter.
Dr. Elizabeth Gong-Guy, director of Counseling and Psychological Services, said the results of the survey are consistent with her experiences that first-year students are becoming increasingly stressed.
“In high school, students simply didn’t have the “˜luxury’ of developing emotional regulation skills and stress management skills,” she said.
Alcohol, drugs, excessive television and video games, and other unhealthy lifestyle choices are common among stressed college students. According to Gong-Guy, however, these strategies don’t have a long-term stress-relieving effect.
Gong-Guy added that being a student at UCLA comes with its own set of challenges.
“The stress of getting admitted to a competitive college creates so much pressure,” she said. “It’s simply not possible to go through a quarter in a completely relaxed state and to be academically successful.”
For students looking for stress-relief techniques or mental-resilience workshops, Gong-Guy urged them to look into CAPS’ many resources, including special workshops on the residential Hill.