Since I just reported on a survey that says college freshmen and sophomores doe 10 hours less studying per week than they did 40 years ago, I feel compelled to post this survey that shows doing less work is not making students any happier. The same survey finds that 75 percent of students think they are working harder than average.
The declining emotional health of undergraduates is a great puzzle to me. Part of my problem is that I loved college and have never been happier, so I have trouble understanding why other people find it so miserable. College is a time to revel in being young, and to imagine great things for the future. So why are so many students sad?
From talking to other professors I get a sense that many students these days are very bound up in their home lives; professors tell me they regularly get excuses like, "My sister was sick so I had to go home to be with my family." Perhaps a generation of people so wrapped up in family life find it traumatic to leave home. The other thing that occurs to me is the thing I harp on all the time, how the freedom young people now have to shape their own lives is experienced mainly as anxiety about how to find work, love, and home.
I am pleased to report that my eldest son is helping to keep down the number of boys who feel "overwhelmed" during their senior year of high school.
Homesickness, is a large part of freshman year angst and unhappiness. It is experienced by students both happy and unhappy at home. It doesn't seem to matter.
ReplyDeleteMy own experience was that I studied less, because it caused the feelings related to being away from home worse. ( Weekends at home eased the pain of homesickness, but if I cracked the books, it became worse)
On the other hand, NOT doing so, increased my anxiety, and so on and on...
Only time, and a certain, "grit my teeth" stubborness, helped me to hang on...
That, and developing friendships did the trick.