Stress. Anxiety. Self-doubt. Don’t fall into these traps in college

Having to pursue college during a pandemic has left 95% of college students with negative mental health symptoms, according to a survey from BestColleges.com, impacting their academic performance and early career success.

Since 2014, anxiety and depression have been college students’ leading mental health issues, according to research conducted by Boston University.

What many students don’t realize is that a lot of the pressure and stress is under their control. This means you should be selective – and realistic – in the jobs, internships, projects and extracurricular activities you take on outside of school. Students and beginning professionals need to establish good habits to manage their time and reaction to things. And, periodically, you need to check in and ask yourself: Am I doing too much? Is it having an impact on my life?

David Robinson, a first-year law student at the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University College of Law and a spring 2021 graduate of Howard University, experienced anxiety-induced procrastination much of his senior year having to trade his face-to-face connections with screen-to-screen ones.

“The biggest theme… was just a lot of procrastination. Insane amounts of procrastination. Even just waking up to do Zoom was just a fight to get on the screen — sometimes camera-ready, sometimes not —just being present and bringing everyone together for school was just a big stressor,” Robinson said.

Procrastination is both a result and driver of anxiety and the more you do can cause greater procrastination. After having lost his summer internship due to the pandemic, Robinson resorted to pursuing real estate as a form of professional development. Thus, during his senior year, Robinson had to study for both the LSAT and the Florida state real estate license at the same time.

Members of Generation Z, who are currently in college and entering the workforce, tend to be appreciation-driven and love opportunities to showcase their abilities in the workplace, according to Empxtrack, a human resources software firm.

Roger Lin is a 22-year-old finance major at the University of Utah. As an intern with HF Foods Group during his sophomore year, he exhausted himself trying to impress his superiors.

“I was really interested in this project and I asked my owner if I could work on this merger. For two months, I was meeting with investment bankers and putting together financial statements for the eventual merger,” Lin explained. “The investment bankers flew into town and I showed them the nuts and bolts of our business since I’ve been working there for so long. This was a big workload when combined with schoolwork and the sales role that I was involved in at the time,” he continued.

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