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THE UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA’S CAMPUS MEDIA SOURCE
THE
October 14th, 2015
Issue No.12
Volume 106
GTWY.CA
The science of growing up in university
Learning to deal with isolation, sex, loneliness and health Jamie Sarkonak
staff reporter @SWAGONAK Growing up is more than turning 18. It’s more than moving out of mom and dad’s, starting university and having a credit card in your name. So what exactly does it mean to grow up, and what is the process that it entails? The answer isn’t always clear, and the University of Alberta’s Nancy Galambos is a specialist in this field. Galambos, a developmental scientist and specialist in adolescence and the transition into adulthood, said the transition to university is a huge step towards independence because of the number of changes a student undergoes during this time. And not all of them will be ready to overcome these, she said. “(Students) all of a sudden get a lot of freedom. What are they going to do?” Galambos said. “They have to make decisions about sex, substance use, how much to study … a student can get lost.” Galambos started her research in adolescence, but as her research participants aged, she expanded her area into young adulthood and onward. Life stages are different in researching. Adolescent behaviour is a unique experience due to the heightened level of self-consciousness that’s typical of the group. Research involves questionnaires, surveys and interviews. Participants are asked a wide variety of questions relating to school, family, friends, substance use and sleep among
many others. Questions are asked repeatedly in order to later show how people change over time. As subjects move into new life stages, new questions must be added to account for new situations in life. Which is why the transition to university is so interesting to study, Galambos said. “You can see people going off and changing directions in terms of what they want to do and how they see the world,” she said. Participating university students begin as subjects in their first year and are tracked as they progress through academia. Some research is collected in daily questionnaires about students’ experiences, such as activities, feelings and sleep habits. Other studies collect data in monthly questionnaires, and participants are followed up annually after their first year. Along with these, academic data is sometimes collected from consenting students. “We can try to connect their achievement and whether they drop out with their experiences in their first year of university,” she said. The transition into adulthood is commonly assumed be chaotic. While young people tend to experiment with negative behaviours, they usually grow out of it, Galambos said. It’s called the “storm and stress” view, where people in the young adult age group are thought of as confused and troublesome.
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