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Mental health issues are often overlooked and misunderstood by a lot of people. It is noticeable that during this twenty first century, most university students have problems with their mental health and their emotional well-being. The pressure from universities that force students to become ideal graduates is enough to make the students diagnose with depression, a common and serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think and how you act. It causes feelings of sadness and/or a loss of interest in activities once enjoyed (Parekh, 2017).
In addition, the four major causes of depression among these students include pressure to get good grades, financial worries, failed relationships, and pressure to study the major against their will.
To begin with, it has been demonstrated that the pressure to get good grades is one of the factors that causes college students to diagnose with depression (Pressure for high grades, 2016). It is challenging for the students to balance schools, homework, assignments, extracurricular activities, social life and a happy lifestyle all at once.
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As they try to adjust to this social environment, they have to learn all the hard way which they have never done before in their high school years. In college, there is barely no one there to instruct or tell them what to do since it is believed that the students have reached the stage of being an adult, and that they should be able to find ways to solve all these problems on their own now.
As a result, when multiple tasks are being assigned to them, they could feel overwhelmed as they do not know which one to begin with. This fact may lead them to feel lost, so they often end up cramming all the schoolwork together and doing them a few days or a night before the deadlines. This, in turn, could lower their academic grades because they try to complete all these tasks under pressure. When they are unsatisfied with their results, they often feel very sad and disappointed in themselves. Furthermore, not only the bad grades affect them, but also their parents. All parents always expect good results from their children in academic performance. As the students feel paralyzed by this academic parental pressure, they end up feeling worse than they already are which in turn leads to depression.
Additionally, another factor that causes the students to feel depressed is financial worries (Richardson et al, 2017). Financial factors including family’s debts, and financial difficulties such as being unable to afford bills and having to borrow money are enough to make the students feel stressed to the extent where they end up feeling depressed. They could be under circumstances where they could not afford their rent, daily expenses, college’s materials, and even tuition fees. Due to this matter, the students end up having a lot of debts and loans, and the only way they can repay them all back is having a job or jobs in the midst of pursuing their degree. The courses in colleges alone are enough to make the students feel pressured, but to have another work interfering the studies could make this issue become much worse. For instance, the students are likely to consider dropping out since their academic performances lag behind the others’ a lot. They will start to question if college is really worth it in the end or that it will guarantee they all would have good jobs in the future. Their uncertainty and constant worries about financial matters on studying, in return, lead to crucial depressive symptoms. A study stated that, “twenty-one percent of students who reported a high level of financial distress also reported a high level of depressive symptoms. In contrast, only 3 percent of students who reported a low level of financial distress reported a high level of depressive symptoms” (Koppes, 2015).
Thirdly, another cause of the students to feel depressed is failed relationships. Conflicts and breakups in relationships with significant others play quite a big role in giving bad impacts to the students’ performances in classes and more importantly, their mental health (Legg, 2017). It is quite a common problem for the studens. However, they are not aware about their time management and the bad impacts it would have on their academic performances in the long run. For example, students who are dating have to divide their time wisely between studying and meeting their significant others. As their time has to be divided like this, they do not really have a full concentration on their school work such as projects, assignments, group work and so on. And when their relationships end up becoming failures, it really affects the students badly regarding their mental health. They could become really distressed and depressed therefore, they cannot bring themselves to focus or concentrate in classes. They fall behind a lot in lessons, since their productivity and motivation to do the work lessen, and their mind is so occupied with getting over their previous lover. All in all, breakups will always generate a lot of depressive feelings and symptoms.
Last but not least, another cause of depression among college students is the pressure to study the major against the students’ will (Carpio, 2018). It is really important for the students to choose their major because once they set their minds on what to do, they will have to work on their major-related jobs for the rest of their lives. Each student has his or her own favorite major in mind however, it might be difficult to do so with the opinions of the parents. Most of the times, the parents will always have something to say regarding their children’s choices especially if those choices are right or practical in the society. This is the reason why the children who are unsure of who they want to be, follow their parents’ advice to meet their expectations. Even though they could voice out their opinions on what major to take, they still have to pursue the course of their parents’ choice in the end. In return, the students cannot easily surpass college smoothly. A few bad consequences will occur since they are not studying or doing what they actually love. The more they find themselves difficult to adapt to all the courses, the more they have risks of depression. They will feel as though they are not competent enough in whatever they are doing which results in the lack of self-determination to the extent where they diagnose with depression.
In conclusion, the four factors such as pressure to get good grades, financial worries, failed relationships, and pressure to study the major against the students’ will really play important roles in making them feel depressed during their college years. The importance of these students’ mental health should not be overlooked at all since it will give a series of bad consequences to their studies, and their physical, mental, and emotional well-being.
The Causes of Depression Among College Students. (2021, Feb 01). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/the-causes-of-depression-among-college-students-essay
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