Deep Breaths During Exam Time

Over the past weeks and months, I have witnessed some distraught students.  Young adults who walked into the semester cool as a cucumber are hitting the finish line exasperated - not all of them, but many.  A few have asked me for advice, and all I can seem to muster is "Breath".

I thought that I would strive here for something deeper and perhaps more helpful than this.  At the same time, I'll toss in a science metaphor, cause that is sort of my thing.

We are all aware of the need to manage our stress level.  Everyone has their own coping mechanisms for this, so I won't say "Go to the gym" or "Get more sleep" - it's good advice, but I want to focus instead on the bigger picture.

One thing that has been important for me is setting reasonable expectations.  I was not always good at this.

Students in Crisis

In the few years that I have been teaching physics at college, I have never come across a greater number of distraught students than I have this semester, the Fall of 2011.  Of the seventy students I have taught or mentored, no less than fifteen have experienced a personal crisis at some point in the past four months - that translates to over 20%.

Though I am not a professor of sociology, I am well aware that this case study is in no way thorough.  An actual case study would involve a much larger group of students, pooling several class sections across many different educational institutions.  Also, my students did not fill out a survey.  I suppose the last weakness in my statistical assessment is that the situations that may constitute a crisis are defined subjectively here by me.

Placing these shortcomings aside, there is no denying that more than 20% of the students that I have encountered this semester have brought personal concerns to my attention that I deem to be severe for any adult to deal with, but particularly severe for a young adult between 17 and 20 years old (the typical age group of my students).  It is worth noting that there may be some students in my small sample group who experienced a crisis, but were not tallied in my count, as they did not decide to inform me of their problems.  So, the 20% figure is likely a low estimate.

Members of society who view collegiate students as unthoughtful, pot-smoking, lazy teenagers ought to revisit this unfair stereotype.  My sense is that for every student that is coasting through life with a sense of entitlement, there is at least one with his or her back against the wall.  Today's young adult student has bills, demanding jobs, and too often, family problems.  In my view, adults should consider a more empathetic view when framing college students.  Many of these eighteen-year-olds are not experiencing the prime of their lives.