Introduction:

The psychological well-being of students has surfaced as one of the important concerns areas in recent years. Modern life, pressure from society, and social media create major unrecognized pressures for students. This essay explores the mental health crisis that faces college students in terms of external stressors to which they are exposed and how these pressures affect them.

All things considered, the students face more resources and opportunities than ever before, but the pressures of competition and high expectations often result in a feeling that is overwhelmed, nervous, and lonely. The Burden of Expectations:

It Is at this early stage in the lives of students that they carry an excess load of expectation. From scoring the highest marks, and excelling in extracurricular activities, to getting admission into a respectable university, one never seems to run out of expectations. In nearly all spheres, parents and teachers add innumerable elements from society which often tend to sacrifice healthy mental well-being.

For example, take my cousin who genuinely was a brilliant student but whose performance, at whatever level, could never be appreciated to her satisfaction. There would always be that feeling that it wasn’t good enough. This constant comparison cuts down her confidence, and she has sleepless nights and anxiety attacks before the examinations. Unfortunately, this is a common case. Many students carry an overwhelming burden of expectations, and to some, it becomes too much.

It is because of this very strict definition of success that psychologist Carol Dweck refers to in her research on mindsets, thereby transforming the student into seeing obstacles as threats instead of opportunities for learning. With no extra space for mistakes, the creativity and resiliency of a student come to an abrupt halt, so they become prey to battles for mental health.

The contribution of the social media

However, social pressure hardly counts as a force that stems from the life of the students. More importantly, social media has brought along its complexity. Relating and sharing pieces of one’s life through Instagram and TikTok can easily be applied to students, but at the same time, they create a kind of reality curation breeding unhealthy comparisons. They spend hours scrolling through their social networking feeds, daily bombarded with images of their peers’ triumphs: awards for excellence in studies, adventures travelling across the world, and perfect seeming social lives. They are endlessly exposed, and they then develop a distorted sense of their self-worth, as though they are falling behind someone else in the running for success.

A close friend once shared with me how social media had been affecting her mental well-being during college last year.

As she prepared for exams and the pressures of those exams drew nearer, she found herself glued to her cell phone, comparing her own capabilities to her well-groomed classmates’ smoother posts. Innocuous browsing soon tipped to conclusions where she was bound to be incompetent and anxious.

In fact, she turned out to be the best student in her school, but could not feel she was doing enough because of the online untrue presentation of success. The Fast World of Competition Today, the whole world is a global marketplace and competition is much more rife than it was ever before. The students are not competing merely with their classmates or peers within their own country but against the quality of the service that has been implemented worldwide. International standardized tests, scholarship opportunities, and job applications raise that bar every day.

There is a great need to tackle such situations in this fast world where students are tested and are constantly pushed to their limits. In such circumstances, burnout is quite inevitable. The World Health Organization has proved, and it remains a fact that academic stress is the most cited reason for mental disorders among young people. Such situations make the students forget their psychological and physical well-being at the altar of success.

One of my acquaintances was once very vibrant, and very ambitious for a student, and shared that all that pressure eventually became too much.

She juggled time interning, a full load at school, club activities, and keeping up a social life. She seems to come together in all respects of living when, in fact, all along, she is silently suffering from debilitating anxiety, even having panic attacks.

All this added up to her being “perfect”, which in turn led to a total breakdown and dropping out of college for one whole semester. Societal and Educational Responsibility:

The society of the present day has moulded the minds of the students. The usual metric of success- proper grades in class, a good paying job followed with a stable career afterwards a rather narrow measure to determine the potential of any student. Individual differences and also mental well-being are not accounted for. Educational institutions, too, share some responsibility. Indeed, many universities and schools have improved by providing facilities for mental support, like counselling services. However, the perception about mental illness still deters them from reporting mental health problems, as it raises issues of guilt in a student’s mind. Above all, academic excellence overshadows the cause for psychological support. Most students feel that they alone experience such kinds of distress; there cannot be an announcement of mental illness. Conclusion:

Now, student minds seek better attention towards mental health. Society is still tightening nooses around young minds, and it is long overdue that we realize how much energy is being spent on pursuing such expectations. The pursuit of such expectations gets pushed to the acme of student minds through academic expectations, the influence of social media, and speedy competition in present times.

Success now must include emotional toughness, ingenuity, and the seeking of happiness. Only within these school communities does the child find such a fundamental relationship between mental development and mental acuity. Only within such rigorous writing contests such as those in October of 2024 can authors commit to such crucial issues and, on occasion, help further discussion that might lead to change. This would mean that we understand some of the problems students face so that we can take steps to alleviate their burden for them to be helped not only academically but mentally and emotionally. For, as the adage goes: A clear mind is accompanied with a sharp brain. As the adage goes, “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions,” and this includes experience in taking care of one’s mental health.

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