UPTLC 2024

Since the Covid-19 pandemic, the issue of self care for college students has been widely discussed for good reason. The mental health of college students is not only imperative so that students can be productive as a practical matter, but it’s also ethical to foster an environment that supports well being. However, in order to properly address the well being of college students, missing from the conversation is the need for systemic change. Self care has largely been defined as a deficiency of the individual rather than a societal problem. There are three ways that I would like to see the debate reframed in order to address systemic concerns. First, I argue that self-care is necessary, but with the current credit loads that students take it can often be unrealistic for students to make time for themselves. I propose that colleges reverse the trend of normalizing 18-credit hours per semester to a more reasonable load. For example, at Michigan Technological University, students have a financial incentive to take more classes and some majors’ default plan is for two of the four years to be 18-credit-hour loads to complete the degree on time. This shift in culture would ensure that students have time to care for themselves and recharge. Second, one of the most important aspects of self care is connection. This has been missing since the pandemic and the trend of rushing through college has exacerbated this disconnect from community. When students feel connected, they perform better because their mental health is also better, allowing them to focus. When students are overworked, they feel isolated from peers because they do not have time to socialize with others. Students also feel overwhelmed if they cannot keep up with schoolwork and can develop a negative self-image that they are not meeting expectations because of a personal failing. Isolation exacerbates this. In contrast, in European countries the workload is less and therefore students have more time to forge connections, be it joining an extracurricular activity or regularly enjoying coffee with friends. This connection boosts mood and lets students recharge so that they can be successful when they study. Third, creating a schedule with more flexible time also has the added benefit that if a student gets sick or has a disability that makes tasks take longer, it is much easier for them to get caught up. I draw on disability scholars (Moya Bailey; Ellen Samuals & Elizabeth Freeman; Janene Amyx Davison; Eric Darnell Pritchard), personal experience studying in the United States and in Europe, and personal experience as an instructor with students managing heavy class schedules. If we are going to take students’ mental health seriously, we would change the normative culture and reshape the economics to allow students to cultivate relationships and live in an environment with a realistic work-life balance. In short, this presentation focuses on self care for students through systemic change.