By Allison Cormier | Observer Contributor
Mental health and managing it while attending college is often not as widely discussed prior to being enrolled as much as financial issues, financial aid, and making time for school in general. However, managing one’s mental health is often the biggest obstacle students face while attending school.
With more parents going back to school, and more students having to work one job if not more to be able to afford school, mental health needs a broader spotlight. Melissa Manzi, the Mental Health Counselor at MWCC, aims to provide students the tools and information to better handle full work loads, as well as prior and emerging mental health issues pertaining to school and every day life.
Manzi explained that her number one piece of advice to anyone going to school, full load or not, is time management. When a student’s time is managed well, and they are able to get everything done on time, with possible time to spare for relaxation, stress is decreased dramatically.
However, often times people will discover their own ways to handle stress that they use in their every day life. The problems arise when they stop using their coping mechanisms when they need it the most. Manzi used exercise as an example, explaining that people may exercise every day do relax their bodies and deal with stress, but when a time of extreme stress arises they stop working out to deal with the circumstances, when the one thing that could actually help them the most would be to continue exercising.
Some mental health issues may be present before a student even begins school; however, under the stress and obligations of college, they become more evident and harder to handle. Manzi said the most common problem students talk to her about is anxiety: test anxiety, social anxiety, and presentation anxiety. She then explained, “Anxiety is fear if you cater to fear, it will consume you, and your mind will never know any different than to let fear win.”
Challenging anxiety is the only way to overcome it. It is like any other skill people must practice every day to not give into their fears. A common form of anxiety associated with college is test taking anxiety, causing students to forget the information as soon as the test is placed in front of them, said Manzi.
A good way to deal with this anxiety is to take practice tests in an environment a regular test would be taken, this way your mind can see that a test in a high stress environment, where it will actually be graded, is the same as a test in a low stress environment, and there is nothing to be feared as long as you know the information.
No matter the cause of the mental health issues, most students don’t know what services are actually provided by the Mount. Melissa Manzi has an open door policy for any student, and professors are also a resource to express concerns to, if problems arise in a student’s life that may conflict with his or her class. Manzi is in office number 140, and her e-mail address is m_manzi@mwcc.mass.edu; she is available any time for questions.
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