Students, stress and anxiety

[Jourdain11]

I work in a university and it's the middle of exam season. For most universities this is the first year returning to in-person exams, but actually not for the one I work in.

These last few weeks have been a constant flood of deferrals, issues in exams, requests to cancel their attempt and retake in August. Some are very well justified, others not so much. Unless there has genuinely been a breakout of gastroenteritis in student halls which has incapacitated every student for a full two weeks.

Since Covid, there seems to be an accepted get-out clause on everything. If you don't want to do it, you just don't! Yet I worry that it is not helping students in the long- or even short-term. They are backing up assessments and at some point they run out of road and it's even more stressful. And meanwhile, workloads are unmanageable.

What can be done about it? Do universities just need to be tougher? Everyone is worried about possible harm being caused, but I do worry that by trying to alleviate stress for the few, we're creating a ridiculously permissive situation for the many, which is not to their advantage.

Or, if so many students are genuinely so stressed and anxious that they cannot do a single exam - what needs to change?

People need to man the fuck up and crack on with it!
I am sorry but what these students need to realise is they will start work soon and their employers won't bloody stand by all this, they will expected to stand on their own two feet and cope.

I know plenty of people who had their exams deferred because they were stressed and couldn’t cope over 15 years ago. It’s not new.

The extent to which it occurs now is new.

@widowtwankywashroom toughen up. Not man up 👎

Ok, wrong use of terminology, but you get my gist.

Surely not to the extent it happens now.

Our university required evidence of illness/doctors note for mitigating circumstances without which it would be allowed. There does need to be some responsibility for students to realise if they’re not in a place with their MH to sit exams and meet deadlines they need to take some time out and interrupt rather than the course having to fit around them.

I think the problem was all the no detriment, no evidence stuff during Covid. Students can't get used to the fact that universities have, for the most part, reverted to the evidence requirements and usual academic regs. And they know all the magic words. I think that right now A&E must be full of students who are there to get 'evidence'.

It starts in schools. So much pandering to anxiety - my DS’s school sent out a letter begging for parents to be extra exam invigilators as they have so many pupils needing accommodations of taking their exams in a small room on their own as they can’t cope with the exam hall environment. I’m not totally unsympathetic to anxiety - my own DH has been through a poor patch of mental health where he suffered with severe anxiety - but SOME anxiety is a normal human emotion and, as someone said above, it’s not setting students up for real life.

I agree with you.

I did a Master's degree 2017-2019 as a 40 something your old working parent. I was also going through an exceptionally difficult time in my personal life (I was being bullied out of my job for whistleblowing, followed by me starting the tribunal process - thankfully the company settled before it went to that but the stress for months was hideous. I was also - separately - experiencing harassment from a family member).

Most of my Master's cohort were early 20s recently graduated from undergrad programmes. No exams but it seemed to be absolutely the norm for them to ask for extensions on every single assignment due to some extenuating circumstance or other.

At one point I was off work sick for a month but obviously with children in primary school and a DH who works long hours I still had a lot to do.

I submitted every single assignment on time, never claimed extenuating circumstances for anything despite the fact that I genuinely was experiencing significant stress.

The difference - as far as I could tell - was cultural. I first went to University in the 1990s when you did the work or basically got punished with diminished grades for handing in late. I don't know anyone who claimed extenuating circumstances on my undergraduate. The students I studied with absolutely expected this as the norm, though.

Its not hard to get a Dr note though is it? If you know what to say then you'll get one quite easily.
It annoys me now, we catastrophise normal emotions, yes you're anxious about an exam, it will pass. I think we are setting children up to fail,

I did my degree when I was 37, I managed placements, essays, exams, with 2 children and a husband who worked away, I was never late handing anything in. So I think if I can do it why can't you? But the amount of letters that went in for extensions was ridiculous!

I also work in a university and I don't think the culture of "x number of extension no questions asked" works either. Mostly because students get stressed about an assignment, get an extension, hand in something that isn't meaningfully better than what they would have handed in on time, and then are behind for the next deadline.

I think the late penalty actually helps them learn a useful real world lesson - that done is good. In almost all cases in life, it's better to hand in something 85% there on time, than 100% best effort two days late.

There are other things contributing to this as well. Student demographics shifting so there are a lot arriving with more life stress and less parental support. School being a massive pressure cooker. Pressure to do well and justify the fees. Social media (everyone else is asking for an extension, so guess I should to do as well as them).

Also more assessments! Students all claim to like this because it spreads risk but I'm not sure it does then any favours. I think most did better on a big final assessment they could work up to.

I'm doing my last assessments from my degree, and I've gone to uni as a mature student, so I thought I'd put my two pences in. I think there's a lot of pressure on kids from their parents to succeed, which causes perfectionism, which I guess because it's been drilled into them from a young age, there's a lot of anxiety over coursework. When I went to school, I don't think I can remember this amount of concern over my studies. But, I can't lie, and say I don't get extensions; when I do get extensions, I've had to balance 20+ hour work and commuting, and placements, as well as having learning difficulties. I don't think strikes have helped for all the time I've been at uni :/

Fellow University worker here. You are not wrong. During covid we asked for no evidence for mitigating circumstances, leading to huge numbers of resits and the necessary extra work
Now they are outraged that we actually want in person exams to prevent cheating, and actual evidence for extensions etc.

I'm currently in my first year of university as a mature learner, and am top of my class. Not because I am any more intellectually able than the teens alongside me, but rather because I am resilient, and not afraid or anxious on a regular to constant basis. The anxiety and fear dominates them. They are intelligent and great people but honestly they would have easier lives if they put down the self diagnosing and just did the bloody work. It would take less effort frankly. They are my friends, but I worry about their future because really they all feel so anxious all the time. Of course it's anecdotal and only a snap shot of one course and 23 students, but it is my experience

And don't get me started on the really obvious AI cheats we have had this year...

AI cheating is a good reason to keep exams, tbh.

I suffered from poor mental health for the first time during lockdown. I wouldn't have guessed I'd have those problems or that I'd still have them now. I'd always considered myself very resilient.

Go back a few decades, and I could have coped with anything. I did, in fact, cope with some very hard shit when I was at university and didn't need any deferrals or special adjustments.

I've found my limit now.

I wouldn't assume all students are taking the piss. Just because you haven't been badly scarred from lockdown doesn't mean others haven't been. Don't underestimate how long it's going to take for everyone to really heal.

The combination of the long isolation and the endless bereavements has taken something from me. I don't blame students for preferring adjustments and not wanting to take more time out to fully recover when they've lost so much time already.

I'm a 2nd year part time masters student due to my health conditions. I'm very resilient but have had to use the extension system. Once bc I'd had Covid twice in a semester and w kidney infections one with Covid and due to my pre existing conditions I ended up in hospital with Covid and struggled with it both times.
This year I lost most of my teaching for this module due to strike action and uni refused to acknowledge that teaching half a module was not ok which I've escalated. I also ended up in A&E straight after a lecture where I was kept in overnight so haven't had the easiest experience I had a five day extension which allowed me to scrape a pass but in that time found out that my next planned surgery to improve one element of my life could cause much more damage to other issues then I was aware of and had anniversaries of 2 traumatic events that I don't cope with well anyway. I use extensions to allow me to improve what I've written on the bad days when I've been needing morphine just to be able to stand up but I've never got one based on my diagnosed mental health issues as a masters student which are managed by medication and therapy. I think people forget that there is for the most part there is a system in place to support those with physical invisible conditions and how much harder studying is with these conditions as unless you've been there you will never understand how bloody hard it is when your health is saying no but you still push to do the work .

I would rather have my health then my extensions but the extensions have helped me to manage to submit without getting penalised . Resilience isn't just mental it's how you cope when the world tries to make things impossible.

Sometimes i think the rise in discussions on mental health has sort of backfired.

My 19 year kid FaceTimed me this very week in tears about going to a social event that she really wanted to go to but was going to have to go to alone. She told me how nervous she was and how she had anxiety etc. she said she wasn't good at coping with situations and couldn't manage without support.

I almost took her head off as my mother would say.

I told her that is was completely normal to be nervous about it. That she was good at 'coping'. That she had moved away from home and was coping just fine. I told her she didn't have anxiety. She had ordinarily feelings about a new situation.

There's a difference between feeling naturally apprehensive about something new and scary and experiencing social anxiety. Without more information, it's hard to say whether your kid was naturally anxious or suffering from anxiety.

Bless her though, she's 19, away from home, sad, and rather than provide her with the telephone hug equivalent she thought her parent would give, you've told her that her feelings aren't valid. I wonder what she won't tell you about next time.

The problem is that some people simply shouldn't be at uni. Perhaps it's too much for them emotionally or academically but in any case the unis should be able to say "look, we've tried to help you in so many ways - it's time to think whether uni is for you or not". But in this day and age, obviously no one will have the courage to say that.

I wonder what she won't tell you about next time.

I don't.

And her feelings weren't valid, that's the point. Or at least labelling completely ordinary feelings of apprehension of doing something new as anxiety weren't. It wasn't anxiety. She was in an UBER 15 minutes later and had a lovely night.

She didn't need a 'virtual telephone hug', she needed reassurance that it's normal.