By Nicole Baker
A recent U.K. study found that the current generation of university students are at a greater risk of anxiety and depression than their predecessors. The study by the Royal College of Psychiatrists found that many students are unprepared for university life and face higher debt and fewer job prospects than previous generations of students. Many students will simply drop out of school. In addition to dropping out, depressed students are at a greater risk of developing
problems such as substance abuse. In fact, more than two-thirds of young people with substance abuse issues also suffer from a diagnosable mental illness such as depression. Depressed college students are more likely to binge drink, smoke marijuana, and participate in risky sexual behaviors to cope with emotional pain than are their non-depressed peers. Sometimes, depression brings quite obvious changes. It is almost as if you can’t recognise yourself anymore.
Transitioning from high school to college, students often feel like their first year or so is a repeat of what they learned previously during their four years of high school. In order to graduate from high school, students are required to take several semesters of English, language, math, science, fine arts, etc. In order to graduate from college, specifically Cornell College, we are required to devote multiple blocks to these same subject categories. While general education requirements can be useful in terms of bringing out hidden passions in students, I find that they are mainly pointless and a waste of tuition money. Furthermore, general education requirements take away
from students who wish to devote more time to and take more classes in their respective majors. Cornell College claims that approximately twothirds of the student body pursues graduate studies. With that in mind, after receiving one’s bachelor’s degree, one often has to take more courses in order to get accepted into a master’s program. If undergraduate schools were to reduce general education requirements or eliminate them altogether, then students would have the freedom to take more courses within their major and pursue graduate school upon receiving a bachelor’s degree instead of wasting a year taking additional courses at a local community college.
General education requirements take away from students who wish to devote more time to and take more classes in their respective majors.
Sometimes, though, the stresses in your life can actually come from your peers. They may pressure you into doing something you’re uncomfortable with, such as shoplifting, doing drugs or drinking, taking dangerous risks when driving a car or having sex before you feel ready. This pressure may be expressed openly (“Oh, come on — it’s just one beer, and everyone else is having one!”) or more indirectly — simply making beer available at a party, for instance. Most peer pressure is less easy to define. Sometimes a group can make subtle sig-
nals without saying anything at all — letting you know that you must dress or talk a certain way or adopt particular attitudes toward school, other students, parents and teachers in order to win acceptance and approval. The pressure to conform (to do what others are doing) can be powerful and hard to resist. A person might feel pressure to do something just because others are doing it (or say that they are.) Peer pressure can influence a person to do something that is relatively harmless — or something that has more serious consequences.
More than a million children could be eating unhealthy lunches because their schools are exempt from tough food standards, council leaders have warned. Academies and free schools which opt out of national regulations are failing in their moral duty to ensure pupils receive healthy dinners, according to the Local Government Association (LGA). It said it is concerned that more than a million youngsters attending these schools could be eating poor quality dinners that do not meet nation-
al school food standards. The LGA has issued a fresh call to the Government to introduce a single standard that applies to all schools to make sure that every youngster has access to a healthy lunch. The move comes just months before councils are due to take on more responsibility for public health, including tackling childhood obesity and overseeing the national child measurement service which takes the height and weight of children in reception and the final year of primary school.
Every school day brings something new, but there is one status quo most parents expect: homework. The old adage that practice makes perfect seems to make sense when it comes to schoolwork. But, while hunkering down after dinner among books and worksheets might seem like a natural part of childhood, there’s more research now than ever suggesting that it shouldn’t be so. Many in the education field today are looking for evidence to support the case for homework, but are coming up empty-handed. “Homework is all pain and no gain,” says author Alfie Kohn. In his book The Homework Myth, Kohn points out that no study has ever found a correlation between homework and academic achievement in elementary school, and there is little reason to believe that homework is necessary in high school. In fact, it may even diminish interest in learning, says Kohn. If you’ve ever had a late night argument with your child about completing homework, you probably know first-hand that homework can be a strain on families. In an effort to reduce that stress, a growing number of schools are banning homework.