Academic Stress

How to Help Yourself

  • Look to your resources: talk to your friends, professors, advisors, counselors, RA's.
  • Take note of what has worked for you in the past.
  • “Assess Your Learning Style”
  • Make sure that your Study Space is a good learning environment — the space you study in has a large impact on your stress, productivity, and success.
  • Rest, Relax, Recreation: Frisbee, soccer, a weekly show, are all great ways to recharge your batteries.
  • Keep an eye on your Time Management.
  • Meditate — it can help improve your concentration.
  • Keep your eye on the prize — studies have shown that studying for grades alone hurts your long term success. Focus on skills that the tasks assigned are building, and how hard you are working instead.

How to Help a Friend

Helping a friend improve their academics can be a touchy subject, but it is worth bringing up! Many students who are struggling get discouraged easily because they feel that no one cares and no one can help them. You can be the one to help change this perception.

  • Share Stories, let them know they are not alone. Talk about times that you struggled as well.
  • Reference resources that you have found to be useful and accessible. Encourage your friend to use them!
  • If there is a website, email/IM/facebook it to them so they can easily go back to it if they want to later.
  • If it is a review session, offer to go with them and work it into social/study plans
  • Share study strategies that have worked for you, invite them to come study with you,
  • If they don't believe they can achieve something, point out to them similar things they have worked hard at and succeeded in, in the past.
  • Be gentle in your suggestions — sometimes your friends are not in a place to be able to accept your help. That is okay. Remind them that you are there for them, that you care.