HOW TO COPE WITH ACADEMIC STRESS AS AN UNDERGRADUATE

College, obviously requires significantly more effort from students than high school.  Once you enter college, you will probably find that your fellow students are more motivated, your instructors are more demanding, the work is more difficult, and you are expected to be more independent. These higher academic standards and expectations are even more evident in graduate school. As a result of these new demands, it is common for college students to experience greater levels of stress related to academics.

Many students find that they need to develop new skills in order to balance academic demands with a healthy lifestyle.  Fortunately, the University of Michigan offers many resources to help students develop these skills.  Many students find that they can reduce their level of academic stress by improving skills such as time management, stress management, and relaxation.

Whether it’s your parents pushing you to boost your GPA, teachers criticizing you for a less-than-stellar test scores, or your own drive to get in to your first-choice college — or some combination of the three — academic pressure can get the best of you if you don’t learn how to deal with it properly.

 

The Pros and Cons of Stress

Stress is anything that alters your natural balance. When stress is present, your body and your mind must attend to it in order to return you to balance. Your body reacts to stress by releasing hormones that help you cope with the situation.  That in turn takes energy away from the other functions of your brain, like concentrating, or taking action.  There are two different sources of stress: external triggers, like getting a poor grade or breaking up with your girlfriend/boyfriend, and internal triggers, like placing high expectations on yourself. We are stressed from academics while trying to meet up with academic demands, our parents/guardians, multiple assignments, and exams. Stress is bad for our health and brains, this why we have less productivity when we are stressed.

Hence, we will be sharing few tips with you on “HOW TO PREVENT STRESS, AN INTERVIEW WITH A psychotherapist who has helped countless teens cope with school stresses, about her best tips for managing academic anxiety. Scroll down for five helpful ways to get through your high school years with less stress.

1. Take time for self-care.

He emphasizes that you have to start with the basics, like sleep. “You have to give your organism the means to cope with stress, and that includes healthy food, non-harmful substances, sleep (dramatically more than most kids think they need), down time… Building into your day right-brain activity that lets you digest what you’ve been going through and process it. Those are some basic and almost biological needs we have.”

Taking time to pause from the relentless pace of everyday life and enjoy creative activities that keep you from dwelling on or stressing over school pressures can go far in decreasing your stress levels.

2. Learn to change your thinking.

“You cannot get stressed out unless you believe your thoughts,” says Stiffelman. “All stress is precipitated by stressful thinking.”

When you start stressing about not finishing your project on time, your mind builds a case for why what you believe is going to happen will happen — and this can be paralyzing. So, when combating negative thinking patterns, he recommends coming up with specific examples to counter the stressful thoughts. Think instead of concrete ways that you can create the time to work on a project, and how your previous line of thinking isn’t accurate.

3. Take assignments one baby step at a time.

He however, advises her young clients to chunk their work down into manageable, bite-sized portions that feel less overwhelming than looking at the big picture. If you have an essay to write that’s making you feel anxious, list the individual steps that lead to the destination of the essay being finished (finding sources, creating an outline, writing an intro), and the task will begin to feel less daunting.

“List what you have going on, and list how much time each thing is going to take,” she suggests. “Chunking things down makes them feel more manageable and less anxiety-inducing.”

4. Lower your goals.

No, we’re not talking about being a slacker. According to Stiffelman, following the truism “Lower your goals, you’ll achieve more,” can help to relieve stress and boost academic success.

Instead of setting your goal to be getting the highest grade in the class, set a goal to feel satisfied with your performance.

5. Stay balanced during exam periods.

The importance of taking breaks and working in time to relax during your busiest and most stressful periods can’t be overestimated, Stiffelman urges. Not matter how hard you push yourself, nobody can maintain constant focus, and you will burn yourself out if you try. Take frequent, short breaks for fun activities so that you’ll be able to go back to your writing or studying refreshed.

“Do something that, even for 15 minutes, brings you back to yourself,” says Stiffelman. “I’ll often say, ‘What did you love to do when you were six years old?’ Do a little bit of that when you’re in prep mode to counterbalance the stress — no brain can work for 24 hours non stop.”

 

Tell us: How do you cope with pressure at school? Do you think schools have a responsibility to help their students manage stress?

10 Things You Should Do Before Your Final Year In School

By this time in the next few years or so, you would have been rounding off your undergraduate programme. If you want to be sure you had prepared for life after campus, you’ve got to start these right from now! This is actually based on the notion that you’ve already taken a decision on what you want to be in future. As you get ready for that priced time regarded as ‘final year’, here are the top ten things you should consider doing ahead of time .

Participate in Career Advancement Events:  They are many around. From conferences to seminars, workshops to symposia and from competitions to contests, from grants to scholarships, the list is endless. It only takes discerning minds to identify one. In line with your future aspiration most especially, it is important you attend such career advancement events. Use career advancement websites or google, ask a professional in the field to keep a tab on upcoming career advancement events ahead.

Earn the trust of others: Are you the cunning type? Do you possess some character that could portray you as a dishonest person? It’s high time you started getting rid of such characters. People around you are watching you. News of your good character or otherwise would spread to a place you never imagined in the nearest future. You’d better turn a new leaf today before it’s too late!

Volunteer: Volunteering involves you providing services to people based on your skills or expertise at little or no cost at all. The world is in need of helpful people and such people should be sure that their effort is not in vain. It is important to note that volunteering could even increase your chances of getting a job. In an age when work experience is one of the pre-requisite to get a job, your volunteering experience would be helpful. For example, consider using your leadership and organisational skills, editing, writing, publicity, ICT, social media, medical and child caring skills. Give to the society voluntarily and you would succeed!

Mop up your social media: Watch what you post on the social media. Your first job might be lost as a result of one status update in the same way another could get you a job right before you graduate. Remove that gangster picture of yours. Be equally careful of those who tag you in their status updates, especially if such wouldn’t present you in a good light. If it requires you ‘unfriending’ or ‘blocking’ such people, please do! Be as modest as possible in your posts. There is no crime talking about religion, politics, ethnicity, gender or other topics of diverse views. But if you must, you should thread the path with high level of intellectuality based on facts and avoid maligning other people indiscriminately.

Study Smartly: Studentship isn’t all about working hard to get the highest of grades but studying smartly. Smart studying emphasises you understanding the course content beyond examination situations. More often than not, most students read just to pass exams. Yours should be an exception! Irrespective of what the course is, it important you can apply its contents beyond examination situations. You don’t want to open your over five hundred page engineering textbook when asked to determine solution to a mechanical fault!

Learn some skills: A skill-based personality is the ideal professionally-prepared personality. Go beyond the lectures to learn new skills applicable in the industry generally. It is possible that that step could place you above your peers in future. Skills learnt should be however relevant to contemporary times. Your skills are your selling points!

Engage in fruitful journeys: Before you decide on embarking on any sojourn as a student, weigh the benefits. Ask yourself what you stand to lose by not participating as much as you consider what you stand to gain. You don’t want to found in the midst of street urchins nor would you want to be caught in the web of some controversy betraying your sparkling good character.

Get yourself a mentor: Career mapping comes to play here. Your career should be plan-based. You would need a trustworthy professional in the field to be your mentor. He is more likely aware of current trends relating to achieving career success. He can easily help you in material and technical support where necessary. Your mentor should be your adviser in making professionally-inclined decisions. There is no need for an aspiring lawyer having a physician as his mentor. Choose your mentor wisely!

Start practicing before graduating: Do you want to be a teacher? Start acting as one directly or indirectly. Clinch with a professional in your field of choice and request being his assistant/intern Don’t expect to be paid since you are not yet a graduate. They could consider paying you if they have the resources to cater for that. You know what? Practice makes perfect!

Be prayerful: God is the one who makes our plans materialise. Whatever we have in stock can only be successful combining dedication with prayer. There are stories of dedicated people who yet failed. That’s as a result of lack of God’s blessings in their acts. Think God first!

People generally see tertiary institution life as being full of freedom. Yes, it is! Everybody is free to do whatever they wish. Why not do something personally worthy of reverence and reference against the future? Choose to do something beneficial for yourself. Your future starts now!