Many college students tend to deal with stress on a day-to-day basis, and while some have had time to figure out a great system to minimize stress, others haven’t the slightest idea how to escape its strong, life-altering grip.
Sierra Andino-Wilson, freshman Christian studies and sociology double major, said she does not manage stress well, and the difference between high school and college is adding more stress to her life altogether.
“I’m not very open, so I really don’t like adding more people to my situation because it makes my situation more stressful, so I’d rather just deal with it by myself,” Andino-Wilson said.
“And then, usually when I’m stressed out I just want to be by myself, and that doesn’t get anything done.”
Corwin Singleton, junior applied theology and philosophy double major, said he struggles with managing stress, but deals with it well, to some degree, since he has gotten As in all of his classes for the three years he has been at CBU.
Singleton finds it of the utmost importance for people to see their work as God training them to become stronger for what is to come, and that keeps him from being stressed because he knows that God has him in a safe environment.
“You know how if you’re in a flight simulator, then you know, OK, well if the plane goes down, it’s not really going down, I’m not really going to die; it’s just a simulator,” Singleton said.
“And so a lot of times when I’m dealing with a stressful situation like that, I just have to remind myself this is just the flight simulator, and it’s not going to kill you if something goes wrong,” said Singleton. “If you don’t do as well as you wanted to, God has you in this safe environment, so just go with it, do your absolute best, and let him work.”
He encourages students to make to-do lists and schedules because that is what has kept him on the right path these three years.
He said sometimes he has things stored in his head and if he gets one more task, he will lose them all.
“Write out everything that needs to get done,” he said. “I do brain dumps all the time, where … I just write (everything) on a piece of paper or on the phone, and I set a schedule to make sure all those things get done.”
Dr. Jeff Mooney, associate professor of Old Testament and senior pastor of Redeemer Baptist Church, said stress among college students is usually caused by a lack of time management, lack of organization, and lack of willingness to create and execute plans.
He also said that naturally he is the type to organize without a problem, but struggle to execute the plan.
“(People) are stressed out primarily because they can’t conceive of pulling an all-nighter, or they can’t conceive of not doing this social activity or that social activity, and then what it does is it eventually produces the kind of momentary stress that you have when you had four or five hours that you could have given over to responsibilities, but instead you embraced privilege without first achieving responsibilities,” Mooney said.
