The student’s anxiety is common knowledge: almost every adult or professor seems to think that being stressed out in college is completely normal, and there is nothing wrong with it. They say that we all have been there and that you will remember this time with a smile in the future. But what if they are completely wrong? What if society is drastically underestimating the modern amount of stress and the complete overwhelmedness an average college student constantly feels? We follow the popular discussion on Reddit to gather the opinions of real teachers, analyze anxiety cases they personally encountered, and evaluate the scope of the problem. Let’s find out if anxiety among students is worth public attention!
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Key Takeaways
- College students struggle with balancing academics, jobs, and social life, leading to significant stress and anxiety. The increased freedom in college life requires students to develop strong time management skills, which can be overwhelming.
- Teachers on Reddit express varying opinions about student anxiety, with some dismissing it as an overreaction and others recognizing the genuine stress students face due to academic workload, social pressures, and exam anxiety.
- There is a disconnect between traditional teaching attitudes and the modern realities of student anxiety, so the education system must evolve to address the mental health challenges faced by today’s students.
Common Reasons to Be Stressed Out in College
There are a lot of reasons for stress and anxiety for an average college student, but we have highlighted the primary three. Most of the others can be forked from these three most critical (according to Redditos), so let’s explore and analyze them.
Time Management
Do you realize that as your freedom grows, so does your responsibility? College life brings not only new rules but also requires careful time management. Maintaining a healthy balance between academics, job, social life, and occasional trips home is no easy feat.
You might have considered how to manage your time in high school. However, time management becomes an entirely new beast when you’re a college student.
⏰ Your parents aren’t giving reminders. Actually, it’s doubtful that they will even notice if you skip many days of class. It may seem like a dream at first, but you may want to reconsider after encountering actual problems your parents cannot handle.
💼 Having a job while in college can be more challenging. And you may need this job in order to earn some money and satisfy your primary needs: so, quitting is not an option!
🎉 When you’re not confined to the same building for eight hours straight, planning outings with friends is more of a hassle. You are young and full of energy and want to party and travel, but what about those endless academic assignments?
Well, this is all true. College life requires a completely new level of impeccable time-management skills, and only some students can handle these changes without effort. As a result, you need to be better at managing your time to succeed in every area of your life.
Some of the teachers on Reddit, btw, think that students nowadays are “too soft,” and words like “stress” and “anxiety” are dramatic exaggerations.
“The faux language of mental health has become dominant among children and education. Children are no longer “nervous” and no longer have “butterflies.” Everything is unnecessarily ratcheted up into this intense and hyperbolic therapy speak.”
“This will get me downvotes, but also “trauma.” Not everything is trauma. And even things that are traumatic must still be overcome. We have to stop making children believe they are fragile and instead instill in them that they are resilient.”
Test and Exam Anxiety
You may expect to spend a lot of time studying for exams in college. Professors in college are less likely to allow students to carry note cards or make up for lost material than their high school counterparts. Plus, because your teachers aren’t in constant contact with one another, you can have multiple exams in a row. In addition, sometimes you just can’t fit the tests into your timetable. The Monday following a college football weekend is the worst time to take an exam.
You can find some tips on coping with exam anxiety in our blog!
Social Challenges
There are a lot of social challenges for a new kid in college, especially for a nerdy home kid with little social awkwardness. It can be hard even for a seasoned “social butterfly,” suddenly you need to get accustomed to the new life, make new friends, integrate all new faces of students and processors into your inner world and so on. Are you really asking why we are so stressed out?
But guess what: teachers really really hate when we are talking about anxiety. For example, you can check out this Reddit comment.
“A child mentions any buzz word, such as anxious, regarding a teacher, and suddenly we’re in the principal’s office being grilled on our teaching style and demeanor.”
These tips for college freshmen may be helpful for boosting the socialization process.
Academic Workload
And the final boss (last, but definitely not least one) is the academic workload. Yes, we all know the drill and sometimes the number of assignments you need to complete till Monday is just unbearable. Is this one of the core problems of the modern education system or are students just going soft? It seems that everyone has an independent opinion!
If you are also struggling with an unbearable academic workload, consider learning how to focus on your homework to stop procrastinating and become more productive.
Teachers’ Take on the Anxiety Problems Among Their Students
We have already figured out that most of the teachers (at least among active Redditors) don’t really want to hear about students’ stress and anxiety. They are ready to blame Covid, new soft generation and almost anything instead of addressing the problem.
“It wasn’t just Covid. Read the anxious generation. Students are now so used to talking to each other on technology (texting, tweeting etc) that they have not learned the ability to navigate real life interactions with people.”
“Maybe an unpopular opinion, but not forcing kids to speak publically does them no favours. Better to learn in school than end up doing it for the first time at university or at a job.”
“We’re seeing this already in the workforce. I’m a federal manager and we hire a lot of new grads and so many of them just can’t cope with ANYTHING. Feedback, briefing requirements, deadlines, being asked to come to work on time…”
Fortunately, there are government and psychology associations ready to argue with these old school professors and their life lessons. The modern education system needs to adapt to the global tectonic changes (in student’s mindsets as well), and those professors have to either embrace new methods or leave the system for good.
Follow us on Reddit for more insights and updates.
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