Welcome back, Terps! It has been an exhausting eighteen months, but we are here for you and for each other! Our hope right now is honor the difficulties that you faced in the last eighteen months, while also providing some practical advice for moving into the new academic year – and some hope.
We won’t gloss over it: many of you have missed out on a traditional senior year of highschool, a traditional freshman year of college – maybe both. Right now, we know that only our fourth year students – mostly seniors – have ever experienced a “normal” college year. Some of you lived alone last year and will have to adjust to having roommates; some of you are still grieving lost experiences from the past two academic years. Some of you have experienced racial injustice, illness, the loss of loved ones, and incredible social and political tension. Many of you are exhausted and traumatized. (Us, too.) We’re all exploring anew what it looks like to attend classes in person, engage with folks with a little more safety, and make the most of the lessons we’ve learned. In short: we’re together on this journey together of figuring out what our new-new-normal is going to look like.
We’ve collected some wisdom from peers across the internet, and we invite you to look through and reflect on these things. They can help prepare you for upcoming difficulties, and give you some idea of how you might be able to navigate upcoming challenges. Please never be afraid to reach out for help from your peers, RAs, case managers, counselors, Resident Directors, and more. As we say here at Terps Take Care: we all need help swimming upstream.
From HealthyPlace.com, Post-Pandemic Anxiety: Adjusting to Another New Normal:
You can start now to prepare for and transition toward another new normal, where you can hug your grandparents and go to parties. Even though COVID restrictions will be lifted, life will not be the same as it was before. We’ve undergone collective grief over everything the pandemic took from us. This experience has become part of us, individually and as a whole.
One step you can take is to reflect on your COVID life. Set aside a good chunk of time to reflect and record your thoughts (written, through voice recording, or by video). What have you learned during this time? What have been some of your favorite memories? What made life difficult? Then look forward: What are you excited for? What exactly is making you nervous, and why? Sorting out your thoughts this way wraps words around complicated emotions, which can make them feel a bit smaller.
The next thing to do is to build up gradually. You don’t have to jump from not seeing anyone to attending a giant music festival. Start with hanging out with a few friends. Regain your comfort in social situations, one small gathering at a time.
It’s your decision how fast you make the transition to your new normal. Avoid criticizing yourself if you feel awkward doing social things again–it won’t get you anywhere. Enjoy the period of transition, and laugh when a COVID habit pops back up. Take comfort in knowing that the entire world is entering this unknown phase together.
From Forbes.com, I’m Worried About Student Mental Health Post-Pandemic – Here’s How We Can Help:
Now the world is opening back up. But these exacerbated mental health challenges will linger. I recently moderated a panel with several prominent leaders of healthcare organizations in New York City, and they all said that a primary concern was addressing the mental health needs of their employees and communities.
Like those leaders, I’m worried that our students will face lasting impacts from a year without socialization, from a year of devastation, from so much unprocessed grief.
First, we all need to prioritize students’ mental health. Whether they’re graduating from high school and preparing to enroll in college next fall, or if they took some time off, or even if they’ve just finished a remote or hybrid year of college and are preparing to return to in-person instruction in the fall, now is the time to help students think about the year they’ve been through and the challenges ahead in college. Conversations with professionals can be helpful. But so can thoughtful, clear-eyed discussions with friends and family.
If students have been under a professional’s care, now is the time to start making plans for how that therapy or other assistance will continue once college starts in the fall. Do you need to find a local caregiver near the college? Can teletherapy help? There are many ways care can continue; the key is to be prepared for the move. The director of our Counseling Center, Richard Shadick, PhD, advises against making any substantive changes to a student’s treatment plan in the first year of school—that is, if possible, sticking with what’s been working.
The American Psychological Association recommends several ways people can work to build their resilience. The most important ones include:
● Having a strong network of supportive people who will listen to your problems.
● Working toward goals by focusing on small steps. Moving forward toward a solution will remind you that you have control over what’s happening.
● Developing self-confidence. The more you’re able to bounce back from setbacks, the more you’ll know that you’ll be able to do it the next time you face a hurdle.
I believe all college students benefit from working on their life skills, which in turn promote resilience. They must build good habits that support successful living: eating regularly, exercising, and getting enough sleep. They should learn to keep things in perspective, especially social media. Bad things happen, and likes are nice, but we all do best when we learn not to focus on negativity, when we learn how to get on with life despite challenges or setbacks.
Finally, we must also recognize the additional burdens placed on students from underrepresented groups during this last year. Over the last year, I joined a task force at The Steve Fund, a group focused on supporting mental health for young people of color, that looked for ways to mitigate the mental health impact of the pandemic on students of color. Our findings echoed the same recommendations: Integrating mental health support for students of color in a holistic way and empathizing with the challenges and traumas they face.
A recent symposium we co-hosted with AHRC New York City, devoted to supporting people with disabilities, also noted that the pandemic has had some of its most profound effects on communities that were already marginalized, and that we must all be cognizant of those challenges and provide support to help overcome them.
From YR Media, Class of 2021: College Freshman Share Tips on Navigating Campus Life:
Many first-year students are advising the next incoming class to use social media as a tool to get through another potential pandemic semester.
“I reached out on social media a lot, and I met somebody, before going to school, that was going to my school. Through her, I was able to network with a lot of people and make new friends,” said Ethan Clay, a Chicago native and freshman at Indiana University.
“You must push yourself out of every comfort zone you have grown in high school,” [Corbin Graham, freshman at Iowa State University] said. “You must do whatever is necessary to meet people because in college, connections are your greatest asset and are crucial to your success.”
To incoming freshmen, [Pilar Kelly, freshman at Duke University] suggests familiarizing yourself with your university’s code of conduct on how many people can visit, what events are allowed and other restrictions on campus.
“Everybody’s in the same situation of not really knowing anybody and trying to navigate the pandemic while being in college, so just remember that,” Kelly said. “I would say that things are gonna work out and it might be different because of the pandemic but it’ll be fine.”