www.cmu.edu/news: Carnegie Mellon University is turning to its strength in research to help enhance the student experience.
Commissioned by the Office of the Provost and the Task Force on the CMU Experience, the Life@CMU Project examined student behavior over the course of a semester, and looked at how factors such as stress and sleep affected, and in some cases predicted, students’ well-being. Results of the study, which were presented during a recent campus forum, will be used to guide future student experience initiatives.
4 comments:
Wow, I did not realize just how many students were considered severely depressed. I find it somewhat annoying, that in an article which is about trying to improve student experience at our school, such constant focus is given to the fact that we do not have a unique stress culture. Reading the article, I felt as though more attention was being given on CMU administration trying not to be the target in resulting conversations to why fifty-eight percent of their studied groups were considered to have high depressive symptoms. I think it’s particularly hard, because the varying levels in ability, as well as neurotypicality. In some sense, more mindfulness rooms and comforting dogs will never be enough to comfort us, in the end we still have an incredible amount of work that must be done. Finding the balance of still pushing the students, while maintaining an education that will still provide is something the school is, and never should stop trying to find.
This is a very interesting study, and it's actually pretty surprising that Carnegie Mellon would go out of its way to conduct this study, which is really thorough and has a lot of variables in it, especially considering the stigma that they kind of knew would follow after the results became published. I think that when people are looking into colleges, they either pay no attention to the mental health repercussions of attending said school, or they see a school where people are working on projects well passed their allotted times, neglecting their personal health and social lives, and they're scared away from attending that school. Students at Carnegie Mellon are pretty depressed and most of them are anxious, and a big part of that is simply how the school is set up, to uphold their reputation, its not personal its institutional. I think that this is a first step in creating a dialogue throughout the entire college system about what it means to have so many students that are suffering from mental health issues due to stress and culture, while they're supposed to be having the time of their lives and simply learning.
I actually just glanced through this article a few days ago for my Writing about Public Problems class. What I find really interesting and eye opening about this article is when he said that this is not unique to Carnegie Mellon. It means that other students all over the country are highly depressed and are struggling mentally to keep up with work and social life. I find this incredibly concerning. I think this is a sign that we need change in the way college is structured. I know that everyone from past generations is going to say “oh we did it, y’all are just being wimps”, but this generation is different from the last. Generation Z is incredibly productive and efficient, but have higher stress, anxiety, and self-agonizing tendencies from Millennials. We put higher amounts of stress on ourselves and are considered a very high achieving, if not extremely stressful and perfectionist, generation. This means that we learn differently and view assignments with greater levels of stress, which probably leads to more depression within our generation.
I had very mixed feelings about this article I thought the effort put into the students mental health was a very good effort, and showed action instead of words in a sense. I was a little disappointed with the tendency to talk about it with the sense of “well we are no worse than other institutions” like its a cop out. I think the point about loneliness in students ties back to even the school motto. My heart is in the work, not friends, not relationships outside schoolwork and homework. I think that plays out really harshly in the student body. Many friday and saturday nights that would usually be spent having a social life, you can find people coding on my floor for 112, or writing an interp essay, or in their respective studios building a lamp. I’m not particularly upset, I am very grateful for the quality of my education and as students we find our way around it, but the school even recognising what that culture can do to students who are away from their homes, friends and families can have a lasting effect.
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