▶ BCM210 RESEARCH PRACTICES IN MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION
Once given the topic of university students, I instantly thought of myself and what really represents a university student. Being one myself, the first thought that came to mind was mental health — especially my own. In my opinion, I felt it was the most valid topic considering the fact that university life is and can be one of the most stressful events in a person’s livelihood since it determines your future career path as well as shapes you into the adult that you will soon become.
After discussing with my professor about my proposed topic, soon I began my research. With my own knowledge already in the back of my mind, I found that my presumptions were correct about mental health being a valid topic to be researching about — many of the findings that I found show that university students are the most prone to developing mental health issues. I admit I found it difficult to specifically research about what I wanted to look for because my professor told me to narrow down my focus as mental health was a very vast topic — there are just too many things that you can talk about and search about so I needed to narrow my focus.
I admit that procrastination was a big problem for me whilst trying to complete the tasks given to us when researching, as ironic as that sounds I still pushed through and found crucial information that I later incorporated into my group project. It got a lot more difficult when the pandemic hit and especially when it hit hard; I feel the most productive when I am not at home but because of the recent outbreak of the virus — it’s hindered my motivation and productivity. Nonetheless, my group and I still pushed through and coped with the circumstances during the panic in the city.
If ever another situation like this were to happen in the future, I would take into account previous events that had happened and work differently than I did before.
Mental health has been an on-going topic when it comes to university students. A lot of university students nowadays are prone to developing mental health issues — things like depression and anxiety are the biggest issues in university students whilst going through their college life. University is one of the most crucial stages that a person will go through as it determines the livelihood of the person and where they will be set in the future — as I’ve also mentioned in my annotated bibliography. Students will choose a specific degree they want to study further in and later pursue a career in said degree, typically this is how ‘university’ supposedly works but because of how stress inducing it can get — university students usually have it tough when trying to get through the years of further studying.
As a university student myself I’ve experienced my own types of stress and I noticed it in some of my peers and classmates as well. The fight for completing deadlines is one of the biggest problems a university student can go through, one of the most common things I noticed in my peers is that a lot of them are so-called ‘deadline fighters’ — that is when they’re hypothetically fighting deadlines back and forth. This is a common thing that occurs when due dates of assignments and projects are all quite close to each other thus making any university student stressed out with which to prioritise first. Whenever fighting deadlines I have a tendency as well to procrastinate as I would be trying to complete multiple tasks at once, that would result to my focus moving elsewhere as I wouldn’t know how to manage the tasks. Anxiety can also be prominent when fighting deadlines as a couple of my friends have experienced that they would feel anxious that the due date of a certain project or assignment was close and because of their feeling of anxiety they would either not be able to finish it on time or complete the task on time but not up to their own standards.
Now the reason why students get depression is dependent on a few things that they go through or experience in university, I can say that there is at least 40% of students in university that do part time jobs — so to juggle between doing work and doing school work can already be stressful as it sounds. I can imagine how it would be like to be going to your job whilst worrying about studying for your next exam.
When doing the research project, for my section; I found out a lot more about my classmates in terms of peer pressure, it showed me what kind of people they are and somewhat an insight on their mental state and mental health. I learned that the majority of students during our project are very indecisive when it comes to the future, whether it’s just talking about it or let alone thinking about it. The questions in my section were focused and straight forward and completely unavoidable to not tell the truth, so with that I found that this particular group of students have an unclear path for the future — thus proving my point of students developing or have developed anxiety or other kinds of mental health issues.
▶ BCM210 RESEARCH PRACTICES IN MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION
Research Topic: The relationship between stress and future career decisions among university students
My section is about peer pressure and I have a different set of questions for both the online questionnaire as well as the interview. I wanted to find out whether peer pressure is significant within university students and determine whether they have specific habits that they use if ever being pressured or in the midst of being pressured by their peers.
I tried to be as specific and straight forward with my questions rather than vague in order to receive realistic and truthful answers. In my first question I asked in the online questionnaire, I asked what first comes to their mind when them and their friend’s talk about each other’s future career choices. This was a multiple choice question and I gave a set of impromptu answers that may or may not relate to the students like getting into a job that is related to their degree or remaining unemployed. To my surprise I found that 37.1% of the students answered that they were thinking of getting into a job that is related to their degree; the reason I was pretty surprised at this is because the friends that I have typically get into a job that is completely the opposite from their graduated degree — before they graduated however, they do talk about getting into a job that is in the same field as their degree; but the end result typically is either a part-time job that they settle for the time being or a full-time job that is not related to their degree.
Moving on to the next few questions, I had statement questions that requires answers based on a scale; with 1 being the most relatable to the student and 5 being the least relatable. For the second question, the statement is: when my friends talk about their future career paths, I feel like I can get influenced by their choices. I was expecting a more drastic answer but what I got was 54.3% of the university students answered the middle choice which was number 3, meaning that they are basically in the middle of getting influenced and not getting influenced. This shows me that university students despite already being set into a particular degree and I am certain that they are following their own personal goals and paths; can still have a sense of uncertainty when it comes to life choices and career paths. Other than that, the second most answered was number 4 with 22.9% of the students feeling this way — this shows me that there is still a selected amount of students that don’t really get influenced by their friends when they talk about their future career paths, it may not be severe but it is definitely more than the uncertainty of the majority of students that answered number 3.
My third statement question is: I feel stressed when my friends talk about our future career, and the results of this question was quite a close call; again the majority of students answered number 3 with 37.1% of them choosing this option. The fourth and final question relates to the previous one and that is: I feel a sense of stress/panic when I think about my future career without my friends in the picture; again the answer is similar as most of the students which is 38.2% of them answered number 3. This shows me that there is a common habit for university students to feel a sense of uncertainty when it comes to the future and their future career paths.
In my interview questions I had more open-ended questions that allowed more freedom for the students to give me the answers they wanted to tell me rather than a set group of answers. For my first question I asked the students when getting into the topic of ‘the future,’ do they have a tendency to ignore the topic or indulge in it; again, I noticed that 2/3 of the students had a sense of uncertainty with the topic ‘the future’. The next question I asked was do you want to be working with your peers in the future, and why. All of the students answered yes as they believe that it will be fun since they feel working with friends equals better cooperation, however one student mentioned that there might be some arguments in work — as a student who has worked with her friends before — I can agree because since you have a better connection with your friends, if there ever is a scenario at work regarding work, it can either be personal issues that interfere or work related issues where your friend and you can have disagreements due to different habits and ways of working.
My final question was in the future, if your peers have better career paths than yourself — do you feel intimidated/upset or do you feel happy and are proud of them. Majority of the answers are similar to one another, to summarise; they all will be proud and they see their success as a way to help motivate to improve themselves.
In conclusion, I found that through my interview questions and survey questions; peer pressure is pretty significant in university students although there is big habit with these students to feel a sense of uncertainty towards certain scenarios and feelings.
▶ BCM210 RESEARCH PRACTICES IN MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION
Research Question: How does mental health affect university students?
İlhan, N., Güzlük, M., & Özmen, E. (2019). The relationship between mental health and basic need fulfillment of university students. Journal of Psychiatric Nursing / Psikiyatri Hemsireleri Dernegi, 10(4), 286–295. https://doi-org.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/10.14744/phd.2019.43255
This study shows the relationship between university students and mental health both in the eyes of a student as well as an overall. It was conducted in Istanbul, Turkey and the research study conducted 609 students to participate; all from a foundation university in Istanbul — the data was collected through means of a questionnaire that was distributed to the students.
In the beginning of the research paper they have stated that being a university student can be one of the most stressful periods a person can go through in their life — reason being, this is the crucial stage between adolescence to adulthood where an individual makes life changing decisions based on specific aspects like the course a student will take or the classes they choose to attend or not attend. During a student’s university life, the student will undergo different tasks and problems that one is not too familiar with all while learning new ways to cope or resolve these problems and tasks. It is also a period in a university student’s life where they undergo these new challenges alone and without the help of their parents/family.
In the research it was found that there are several students that developed certain ways to cope with certain problems or issues that they face during their university life whilst a handful of students that go through the same challenges as the ones who are able to cope, are unable to come up with ways to cope with the same problems. Through their research, they found that these individuals who have struggles with developing coping mechanisms are more vulnerable to depressive tendencies, behavioral disorders, overall mental health issues and even academic failures.
After collecting the results of the research, they found that a university student’s mental health affects positively once provided with basic needs such as survival, love and belonging and freedom. Whilst still on the topic of freedom, it was found as well that the mental health of university students significantly improved after given the basic need of freedom — because once an adolescent becomes more independent during their period in university especially — they are more capable of making their own decisions which means that their psychological level of freedom has increased, since they are choosing their own path.
In this study, the Association for University and College Counselling Center Directors found that 95% of college counselling center directors in the US have discovered that there has been an increasingly large amount of university students that are going through psychological problems and that it is becoming a growing concern.
This study found that the average number of students that seek for counselling services in smaller colleges is 9-12% while in large colleges and universities it is 6-7%, it was said that those schools that do provide services as such have a larger body of students that these schools cater to. The most prominent mental health issue is anxiety where they found that amongst college students; 41.6% of them are experiencing problems of that issue, the next most prominent mental health issue was depression which 36.4% of students were found to be experiencing it. Other concerns that the students have presented are things like, relationship problems (35.8%), suicidal tendencies (16.1%), alcohol abuse (9.9%), sexual assault (9.2%), ADHD (8.9%) and self inflicted injury (8.7%).
Despite surveying these colleges and their students and finding out which were the most prominent issues occurring and psychological problems being a growing concern, on average only 24.5% of these students take prescribed medication to help lessen the symptoms of their mental health issues.
When reviewing these two researches about mental health I found there are different sides of the spectrum when it comes to university students, one side is more willing to seek out for professional help and wanting to resolve their on-going psychological issues while the other side; they do want to resolve their psychological issues as well — however, they may be willing but because of these psychological issues; it may be preventing them from seeking out for professional help since it can take a lot to just speak up about how they feel — anxiety being one of the biggest mental health issues found in university students.
In conclusion, I believe that universities can be more open on the different situations an individual student may or may not be experiencing — counselors aside. It can help alleviate the overall stress and pressure that a student feels considering that university is that one period in one’s lifetime that everyone will at least undergo. I also believe that it would be ideal if the counselling services that universities provide on-site would be more taken into account if such services provided more information to students that can help reach out to those specific students who are unable to step up by themselves and reach out for professional help — since I can say that most university students are not really employed into a stable job let alone a job, and may think that paying for counselling in their university may be a waste and may not be worth their money as well as their time.
Jessica Pauline Camille Ablog Mercado 