Stress on students gets higher and higher as the semester comes to an end. Every year universities provide aa variety of sources to help the stressed out students. Some of these sources include therapy dogs, free food, and care packages. Towards the end of the semester all-nighters and students have a close bonding session. however there is no coffee shops open past 10 p.m to help the students out through the all-nighter. "In addition to higher stress, Jane Morgan Bost, associate director of the Center for Counseling and Mental Health at UT-Austin believes that students also have fewer tools to handle that stress." Bosts says to KUT that she is not sure if students have learned how to entirely cope with stress. she believes that students tend to be more perfectionist and have a harder time to spring back after making a mistake. Take breaks may feel like pushing aside responsibilities but it actually enhances production level. It is a way to refresh and comeback more effectively. continuous time on a task tends to drain focus and physiological resources. taking time off to be with the therapy dogs or taking a break for some free food might seem like a waste of time but it actually helps bring you back to study harder. As a result it will bring the stress down.
As I read Khadija Saifullah's article titled "Students should utilize stress relief resources on campus during finals," I could not help but nod and agree with what he was saying. I used to be the student to take no breaks because I thought I was just wasting time. However sitting there for hours at a time made me realize that I was just sitting there doing absolutely nothing, but since I had my reviews and textbooks out I thought I was making progress. Even though universities provide all these stress revealing resources they should make it a priority to allow every student to know about these opportunities. If students are three hours deep in the library they probably do not know about the free food. And what better way is there to relief stress than with food. I think the universities should send out alerts through email, or even have faculty walk around telling students about these resources. Maybe even have a coffee shop on campus that is open past 10 p.m. Overall I do believe students need to informed or taught how to cope with stress and learn that taking a break doesn't mean your are pushing your responsibilities away.
I agree with the blog written by my classmate Luis Ruelas. As college students. the amount of stress towards the last week of class is high. Many try to achieve many long hours of studying and cramming before the test date arrives. Some suggestions listed on the article such as taking breaks and having a place open later than 10 p.m., would benefit many having late night reviews. Including parents, those that work full-time and students that only study later during the day due to other circumstances in their life. I can personally relate to this article. There has been times during this semester that I think I only slept 3 or 4 hours before a test because of late night studying. The body feels drained the next day, that by the time the test is over you tend to crash or feel very low energy for other activities. Improving awareness and teaching students new ways to cope with this amount stress would be of great help!
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