Mental health is something that we all deal with in our lives. Life can be very stressful for college students, especially freshman. We are experiencing a whole new world that we are not accustomed to yet. We have to be adults and handle all of these new situations on our own. 

The topic of discussion at Rowan University is mental health, there has been more awareness on the state of mental health at Rowan University because there has been three suicides only in the last semester. 

But who is there to blame? The University? Ourselves? The people around us? I pondered this question for a while and took my curiosity to the people around me.

I have asked two people, “How has Rowan University affected your mental health?”. 

My friend Mimi responded, “…being on a college campus it definity forces you to get your emotions in check because not only am I here by myself, so I definity have to do it on my own. But I know that if I don’t get it in check like quickly I’ll definitely fall apart and fall behind…” 

This means to me that mental health is something that is forced to be dealt with on your own because if not then there is risk of falling behind on schoolwork and causing yourself even more stress. Even with my own experience being sick some the teachers don’t care about what you are personally going through, they just care about you getting your work done on time. 

This is super stressful because we are only human and things in life do come up that we can’t control and academics is not everything so the school should make more of an effort to support the students who may fall behind because of personal reasons going on outside of school.

I also asked my roommate Aari this question and this was his response, “It’s made me have this perspective of the world I never had, and you can say it’s good. As in a good adult perspective, or bad like damn the real world’s tough kinda bad.” 

This leads me to believe that Rowan University is teaching the students that this is adulthood and adults have a hard life. So on this campus they are teaching you to deal with your own problems just like an adult would no matter how much it affects your mental health state.

The last person I interviewed was Rex…his name is not really Rex. I forgot to get his name but my friend Mimi said he looks like a Rex so now his name is Rex. I asked Rex, “Do you think the mental health services here help?” Rex responded, “Well if they were effective we wouldn’t have the problems we would be having…”

The majority of people I have interviewed believe that Rowan University should be doing more to support their students regarding mental health. Changes could be made to the mental health programs to help people who are going through a rough patch in their life and need guidance and reassurance that things are going to be alright. If I could reach out my hand and catch the student who felt that life was too unbearable to endure I would ask…

What could we have done to help?