It’s not you. It’s not you. It’s not you.
My 1A term in Engineering is something I don’t like to think about too often, because the high levels of stress and alienation I felt are too easy to recall. But, as I’ve walked through campus this fall I’ve been finding myself inundated in conversations with younger students discussing exactly that experience.
Mental health is a buzz word on university campuses and increasingly midterm and exam time is equated with the full gamut of “mental wellness” services: de-stressing activities such as yoga, study tips, self-care tips, etc. These initiatives are offered at many different levels by university services, the Federation of students and student societies. The abundance of these services indicates an awareness at both university and student governance levels of the dismal state of mental health of the student body. But temporary initiatives to decrease stress aside, there are no conversations being initiated by either student governments or the university or Faculty of Engineering around the root causes of stress, anxiety and severe mental health illnesses which pervade university campuses.
The epidemic of mental illnesses in university campuses has been well-researched. A 2013 study by the Canadian Organization of University and College Health which surveyed over 30,000 reported that 90% of students reported feeling overwhelmed, 50% reported feeling hopeless and 9.5% reported having seriously contemplated suicide and 1.3% reported having attempted suicide (that’s nearly 400 students at UW).
While anyone suffering from any form of mental illness undoubtedly has a unique mix of personal, academic and other factors contributing to their illness, the statistics make it clear that there are systemic problems in the university environment which contribute negatively to the mental health of its student population. Although there are many factors about university life which contribute to student stress levels (high tuition and other fees, co-op and job hunting) as it’s midterm week, I’m going to specifically discuss academic life at UW.
The fundamental way in which the university impacts student life and thereby student health is through academics. Engineering at UW is really difficult. We love talking about how difficult it is. There is a strange pride associated with the difficulty of our degrees and a belief that it makes them more valuable. But the constant barrage of assignments, tests, labs, midterms also contributes to declining mental health in the student body. And we’re told by the faculty, by our peers, by the culture that surrounds us that if we can’t handle it, it’s because we’re not meant for Engineering. In my first semester at UW, there wasn’t a single day where I didn’t consider dropping out and believing I didn’t belong in engineering.
The mental health initiatives on campus are often full of study tips, implying that if we just had better study habits we wouldn’t be so stressed by midterms. But this individualizes the issue of mental health and puts the onus on individual students, instead of recognizing it as a systemic issue in the Faculty or University. In practice, there are simple changes that could be implemented across Engineering that would make university less stressful and decrease student stress levels. The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering implemented a new curriculum this year which removed the first-year Physics course (PHYS 115) from the 1A curriculum. Most people who have taken that physics course can relate to the stress of having to take a course in which the midterm exam is openly designed to fail students, ostensibly to serve as an “introduction to engineering.” If reducing student stress levels and anxiety is indeed a priority, why does this practice continue to take place in our faculty? On a larger scale, MIT grades first year students on a pass/no record basis. This means that students will receive a pass regardless of their grade unless they fail a course, in which case their transcript will show no record of them having taken the course. The grading system allows students to adjust to the university environment without having high stress or anxiety about passing their courses. It’s also an innovative educational practice that UW, which has often been called “MIT North” and is a big believer in innovation could implement which would have a significant impact on the student body.
If the abundance of mental health initiatives offered at UW are indeed a sincere attempt to address the epidemic of mental illness on university campuses, then we should also start addressing the systemic ways in which university life contributes to stress levels.
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