MAKING THE MOST OF COLLEGE TIME

To be nervous about starting college is normal. Apprehension means you are excited about starting the new phase of life. All you need is to give a little time to adjust, writes Arindam Sen

It’s that time of the year when lakhs of students from around the country apply and enrol at various universities and colleges. This is a tough time for both parents and their wards, who leave no stone unturned to secure admission in their favourite college. The nerve-racking exercise of admission is filled with uncertainty, stress and often comes with a few shades of disappointment.

In India, the pressure of higher education, kicks in from class XI, when the student is expected to choose a stream. There is a maddening rush to get enrolled in a prestigious coaching institute in the hope to crack the entrance exams. We are familiar with the most famous ‘Kota phenomenon’ — a city that boasts of maximum number of coaching centres preparing students from all over India to crack Engineering entrance exams. Surviving peer pressure to compete the school level as well as cracking the entrance exam can be a challenging task. All this culminates with the board exams where anything less than an average 94-97% means that top colleges in the country, including Delhi University, are out of reckoning. Students are brainwashed into believing that their future is over if they don’t get into one of the traditional degree courses at top institutions across the country.

INITIAL FEARS

Most students look forward to moving outside their home towns to study. Living alone in a new city can be daunting and students face various issues as they move out of their comfort zone. For many, spoken English is a big barrier, as students struggle to converse fluently with their peers and teachers. This can lead to loss of confidence, low self-esteem and people being labelled or made to feel inadequate. Many students have issues interacting with the opposite gender as they have never been exposed to this mixed environment in the past. Economic status plays a big role and gets reflected in the clothes one wears, phones one carries and general spending ability to be a part of a ‘cool’ group. However, by the time one semester is over and Valentine’s Day is nearby, admission stress is long forgotten, and relationship rock and roll are on in full flow.

ADJUSTMENT

The psycho social adjustments at the initial college level are as intense as the stress of admissions. It is this phase that generates the maximum pressure and manifests in a very high suicide rate amongst students in India. Surveys confirm that every 55 minutes, a student in India, loses life due to education-related stress. And the number is increasing in epidemic proportions. Students should be introduced to counselling early in life.

(The author is the founder of zyego.in, an emotional wellness service)

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Source : https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/#