This provides a list of symptoms suggesting possible depression in a college student, some of these are the known: low self-esteem, lack of interest, difficulty concentrating or making decisions, absences for no apparent reason,etc. It identifies the typical life of a college student, including partying, and how this new life style may affect the life of the student. Although a depressive lifestyle is consider as popular in college in this article, it still encourages students to find help and work on their depression. The site also provides different resources that can help through depression.
While looking through this list I found that these sings are not only seen in college but in High school as well. In my personal experience I have learned that many people prefer college then High school because they had more "fun". That in mind I could not entirely understand how the author of this article described this lifestyle as popular. Perhaps there are many students out there in college with suicidal thoughts because of their lack of interest/motivation in life but, that is also seen in High school. Therefore, I believe that problems originate in High School and continue in college. Experts such as Deborah Gray should focus more on the life of a High School student as opposed to a college student for the simple fact that in high school. students tend to be more sensitive.
Overall this article in helpful for the fact that as a reader you can go through the list and identify some signs in your own life and begin looking for help. Although some students, including myself, think we will be alright without help it is still encouraging to find help to work on the different causes of our depression.
Walker, Joyce. "Adolescent Stress and Depression." Teens in Distress Series . 12/07/2005. university of Minnesota, Web. 23 Feb 2010.
This article discusses what it actually is to be a teenager, specially when attending high school. Often we may hear from parents that being a teenager was the best phase of their lives, therefore it will also be the same for us. This is because in High school there was the cool group of friends,"students energetically involved at a dance or sporting event, and a bright-eyed couple holding hands or sipping sodas at a local restaurant". But the article suggests that this is only part of it. Being a teenager is actually a very difficult phase for everyone. This is because most people around teenagers expect too much from them and this creates a great amount of pressure. Further information of this topic in specific is provided by the article.
As a reader I do recommend reading this because although it is known that teenagers get easily depressed and stressed, people continue to say that those were the greatest years of their lives. Perhaps some people did not experience as much suffering as others and therefore said it, however all of them went to school, and all of them felt the need to fulfill some one's expectations at some point. And it is most likely that they will not feel the same at any other phase of their lives as they did when they were young. This is because as an adult people get used to the type of person you have become and they stop expecting. Perhaps we actually enjoy more being pressured because we feel that someone is taking us into serious account. Therefore being a teenager and a high school student is the best.
Samhsa. "School Failure, Sadness, Depression, Anger, Violence". Helping Your Teen. Not Alone:You are not alone Web. 23 Feb, 2010
This article targets parents to help their teens with the depression, stress, etc. caused in school. It mainly encourages parents to support their children specially when they are experiencing failure in school. It is not recommended to nag them or ground them when this happens because it might lead to feel even more depressed than they already do. Different factors explaining failure in school are provided with the purpose of helping parents understand more about the situation and become more flexible. It also focuses on sadness and depression which are common feelings experienced in high school. To explain the outcomes of these negative feelings the author also uses personal examples so the reader can relate. It highlights how depression leads to suicidal behaviour therefore it is very important to do something about it.
After reading this article it reminded me of how I often think that parents simply forgot what it was like to be a teenager. They communicate to us as if they came from a very different world filled with very different types of emotions. I think this article will effectively help parents remember what it was like to fail and the feelings failing caused themselves and their daily routine. Also must suicides are committed at young age, knowing this by a fact how can the majority of parents still pressure and demand so much from their teens? Are they truly doing it for the sake of helping them have a brighter future or simply have a nice legacy to leave behind?
In conclusion I think it is very unfair and almost disgusting how many parents demand so much from a child. In my opinion our freedom is taken away and then we take other people's freedom, because we consider it as the world we live in. Thinking this way will make me sad, but it is nothing compared to when realizing that I have not done anything I truly wanted to do in my life so far. I have just being following the shepherd.
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Further Research...
Madison, Alexandra. "Depression in School: A Student's Trial"Healthy Place. Jan 08, 2009.
March 1st, 2010.
This article focuses on how teachers are unprepared when it comes to dealing with a student suffering from depression. Teachers however, "are trained to handle students who lack discipline, the slow learners, the extremely bright, and even kids faced with ADHD. Therefore because of the lack of preparement this article provides information and tips to help teachers deal with depressed students. Also, giving the adequate attention to those students seems to be the most important characteristic on helping them through their depression.
Although I am not a teacher I consider this article as extremely helpful. This is because often teachers tend to avoid learning about the personal life of students to avoid trouble, specially in high school and college, when we need attention the most...
However, teachers do need to learn the right way to approach a student and help him or her, because the majority of the teachers, or so I would like to believe, are concerned about their students.
In my perspective as a student I feel as if teachers have given up on me at this point of my school life. I am currently feeling sad and pressured, however, in school no one seems to understand that. Perhaps it is because my classmates are experiencing similar feelings and the teachers are too busy to dedicate the attention we look for or to at least pretend they are concerned.
Shipp Jasmine, "I can't go to school today". Poem Hunter.com-March 1st, 2010
As part of researching on School being a source of depression I have found a poem which might represent this main topic. The poem is the following:
I Can't Go to School
I can’t go to school because I am sick
If I walk out my house I’ll get hit by a brick
I can’t go to school because I’m afraid
On my way there I might get run over by a huge parade
I can’t go to school because I have a funereal to attend
School uniforms just aren’t the new trend
I can’t go to school because I woke up late
I broke my thumb while learning how to skate
I can’t go to school because I feel a little blue
My brother stuck my hands together with supper glue
I can’t go to school because school is boring
I wonder what excuses I’ll have tomorrow morning
Jasmine Shipp
Poems are known to be a great educational way of expressing feelings. Reading poems about school written by students can help understand better how students may feel about school. This is one of the many poems provided by PoemHunter.com related to school. I have chosen this one because represents a student's point of view on School, rather than an adult providing his professional opinion on student's depression.
As a reader and as a student myself I am sure that many other students who read this poem will relate to it because at some point in our school life we always looked for excuses to be absent. Although the excuses mentioned in the poem are unrealistic the strong desire of of the speaker of not going to school that day is quite real to me. The voice of the speaker also sounds a bit childish, and this is because excuses are often recognized as a childish act. Regardless, teenagers and adults also use excuses to be absent from something and it does not mean they are being childish. It could mean they simply do NOT want to be there.
Sarafolean, Mary H. "Depression in School-Age Children and Adolescents: Characteristics, Assessment and Prevention ". Healthy Place. Jan 02, 2009. -March 1st, 2010
I recommend this article because it is brief and clear. It would not take more than 10 minutes or less of our time to become aware of different characteristics and factors to consider when it comes to student's depression. Throughout this research, I have repeatedly encounter the same type of information covering the same factors. This being said, I do not know how much depression in school is actually being studied, or even considered.
My experience researching this topic specifically has been somewhat troublesome. This is because it was not easy finding specific pieces of information suggesting that school, specifically, was consider as a source of depression. Perhaps school is not seen in such way by most people. However, It is a fact that thousands of students are in state of depression, even though it could come from different sources, school is always a problem when going through it.
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