Every undergraduate and graduate student on campus experiences stress during their college career. Some students may find it difficult to cope with this newfound stress and may resort to unhealthy coping mechanisms. These coping mechanisms can include drinking to avoid their feelings, skipping classes which can lead to dropping out, illicit drug use. All of these poor coping mechanisms can lead to  consequences that may have serious effects on a student’s short-term and long-term physical and mental health.

Dealing with stress in a healthy way is essential to college students. Mental health plays a crucial role in a college student’s success. Grades, relationships, developing professional skills, budgeting, and trying to find their own place in this world can be stressful. Understanding this and finding healthy ways to get through these life changing events can be very difficult. To cope through this, college students may need guidance and reassurance that they are not alone.

As a future social worker, my role is to advocate for those who don’t have the voice to or are too nervous to ask for what they need. Asking for help can be a hard thing to admit. Coming to that conclusion can be very difficult because no one at that age wants to admit that they are struggling. A social worker’s job is to raise awareness and to start the process of ending the stigma around asking for help. It is perfectly acceptable to use mental health services on the UW-Whitewater campus.

In regards to our campus, there are free and confidential services provided. The Ambrose Center and Winther Counseling Center are great services for students that attend UW-Whitewater. As a Social Work major it was hard to admit that even social workers need a social worker sometimes. Overcoming that battle of admitting that my mental health needed to be attended to was half of the battle. I believe that the campus offers great services on campus. Graduate students work really hard to reach their career goals and try their best to provide service to UW-Whitewater students. These services are very helpful because the graduate students have experienced similar if not identical circumstances that you may going through. I believe that the graduate students can really relate to the undergraduate students and this can help undergraduate students find their place in the world.

Bringing awareness of these services to the UW-Whitewater Campus will be beneficial for the students that attend this campus for both undergraduate and graduate students. Advertising these services are very important. I am a senior at UW-Whitewater. I found out about these services this semester. I wish I knew about them sooner in my undergraduate studies. I am glad that these services exist. These services were advertised at the Wellness Fair that was put on October 15th.  Advertising is key to a successful service. Drawing in students for these services is very important. Posters, emailing students, more events, and free giveaways would be great ideas to promote services on campus. Overall, these services are great and I recommend checking out these services for yourself.

– Paige Beattie,

UW-Whitewater student