By Shruti Bhatt
A new semester has started, and for students, loads of stress will soon start to pile up.
“As soon as the third week starts, it’s go time,” said Krina Patel, a junior biology major.
Patel said the first two weeks always go by smoothly because professors are still giving students a chance to get used to the flow of classes.
“Professors pick up the speed and if you can’t keep up, you will fall behind, and that’s when the stress starts,” she said.
Patel said she makes a promise to herself each semester to not fall behind but said she rarely fulfills it.
“I always believe in myself at the start of the semester, but as it progresses and each class starts getting harder, I automatically fall behind,” Patel said. “The stress is really inevitable.”
Dr. Noah Collins, a faculty member at the university’s Counseling Center inside the Shoemaker Building, said the number of students that visit the center increases as the semester progresses. However, Collins said more students have started visiting earlier in the semester.
Collins said that the number of visits is usually highest from the middle of the semester to two weeks before finals begin. According to Collins, this is normal, because it’s the time when students realize they need to start doing well in their classes.
Junior journalism major Alexandra Robinson agreed with Patel. She said for her, there is less coursework at the beginning of the semester so she tries harder to get good grades on each assignment.
“The end of the semester is so stressful because finals count so much toward your grade,” Robinson said. “If you get one bad grade at the end, it adds so much stress because that’s how you feel for every single class.”
Collins said there are multiple ways to cope with this stress.
“The first thing to do is work on getting enough sleep. It doesn’t matter if you sleep crazy hours…as long as it’s consistent, it will help.”
The next tactic he suggested is to eat healthy and avoid binge eating. He also advised building small breaks into the work schedule to get blood flowing.
“This is hard during crunch time, but just climbing up and down a flight of stairs or working something else will help relieve some of the stress built in that moment,” he said.
Collins said the last tactic is to prioritize in order to help to lessen the pressure.
“Pressure is the enemy, but it’s omnipresent in these situations. That’s why doing something else for a while will help because you’ll have small successes which will put some grease in the wheels.”