Concern About Mental Health Issues By Wanda Kidd CBFNC Collegiate Engagement Coordinator
for Students Heading to Campus this Fall
This year’s sophomores are a major concern for me. The very term means, “wise fools.” Sophomore year tends y daughter gathers data for a large computer comto lead to a high experience of depression in just a runpany newsletter. Their topic recently was mental of-the-mill year. But this year’s sophomores are the group health issues. As we were talking, she said they were who did not have the traditional graduation, had to stay going to have to put an asterisk by the Generation Z data home the summer they graduated and had a tumultuous because the amount of reported depression was skewing freshman year in college. There was no being dropped the overall picture. off and discovering how to live on their own, make new friends and learn to live in new environments. As students have just arrived back to school, this is a wake-up moment. While it is importThey experienced more ant for all students 23 and younger, unknown, more fear and less hope I want to raise the issue of students than any group of freshmen with who are on college campuses and which I have ever worked. Now away from their family and commuthey are ready to start a new school nity systems. year without being afforded the traditional freshman experience. Yet The prospect of a large group of another thing they cannot get back. students who have not had a traditional transition from high school to Then there are the actual freshcollege for over three years gathering men. They closed out high school in one place is something that needs learning online and living with the to be addressed by the schools, the ambiguity and struggle to make communities that surround them and choices about an unknown future. by those who advocate for young They arrived on campus after 18 adults. months of isolation and not having to East Carolina students with Campus Minister share cultural space. They have had While herculean efforts were Charity Roberson. more free time than any other group of made to help these students continue graduating seniors, with flexible work schedules and the with schooling in this pandemic era, there has been no ability to bend social norms, like getting dressed, phone authentic way for them to fully socialize with each other. use and in-person interaction. Someone pointed out the other day that they were Isolation is an important factor in depression. going to have to retrain their face to be socially acceptThose who are juniors this year had their freshman year able after a year of masking and zooming. That is just a tip interrupted just as they were preparing for their sumof the things we will have to relearn. mer internships, vacations and jobs with their hopes and Add to all of the personal issues that students bring dreams of adventure in full fantasy mode. All of those with them to school, the reality of social turmoil that has plans came to a screeching halt and they had to go home gripped the country while they have been isolated and you in late spring of 2020 and figure out how to live in a very have a cauldron of concern. close family unit. The hope that this would be over soon
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was a sustaining mantra, until the fall when they realized they were going to live with fits and starts as everyone tried to figure out how to navigate this uncharted landscape of how to continue to get an education in the midst of a pandemic. This up and down, creating significant highs and lows, is another contributing factor to depression. 8 | The Gathering
What to do? I wish I knew, but it is important to acknowledge the issues and begin to work on strategies that will address these concerns. There is no college or university that has the bandwidth to do this on its own.
