Marena Beale
September 15, 2023
Stress on College Campuses
English Composition
I believe that students need a healthy balance of stress to strive in college. There is a way to turn your anxiety about assignments and commitments into motivation and energy. When students are in a stressful situation, they are triggered to use their critical thinking and problem solving skills to find a way out of it, which I believe prepares them for future endeavors. Everyone will experience discomfort in their lives no matter what path they are on, and by being slightly unsettled in school, you are preparing yourself to be pushed out of your comfort zone.
In the article, “The Coddling of the American Mind” by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, they discuss how college students are being sheltered from thinking freely and feeling discomfort. In the very beginning of the reading, they say, “A movement is arising, undirected and driven largely by students, to scrub campuses clean of words, ideas, and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offense” (Lukianoff, Haidt). I don’t think this is the case for all colleges and students, but I do worry that larger schools are falling into this trend. Creativity and fresh ideas make us unique and diverse, and if our education system continues to strip these traits from our students, only negative things will come. Our future leaders need to be able to adapt, problem solve, generate solutions, and more. Colleges and even schools leading up to further education need to be encouraging this positive behavior, not stripping me and fellow students of it. Students need to be able to form their own opinions in order to thrive.
According to Lukianoff and Haidt, “This new climate is slowly being institutionalized, and is affecting what can be said in the classroom, even as a basis for discussion” (Lukianoff, Haidt). If this so-called new climate continues to spread, students now and the ones in the future will struggle in the “real world”.
Overall, school systems need to teach students how to deal with stress, not prevent it. Now that attention has been brought to the issue, we can start to stop grown adults from telling children how to think, feel, speak, etc. Stress can be used to motivate us and help us grow, which is what students need and deserve to be taught.
