College students are struggling in this era of Covid 19.

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I am not taking the time to look up much data, but a quick search indicated that my impression that college students, especially freshmen, are struggling to adapt away at college.

This should come as no surprise, as there are several very challenging factors that are meeting at an intersection for them.  Here are a few of them:

• Big transitions create psychological challenges for pretty much everyone.  Now, imagine 4 or 5 of them at once.  Now imagine 2-3 culture changing challenges hitting at the same time.  Their parents’ marriage is struggling, their friends are spread out around the country, their boyfriend/girlfriend is several hours way, they don’t have a church, sports team, or other central gathering location for their comfort zones…

• Homesickness is a real thing for college students who go away to school, especially first year students.  Many common distractions from these feelings are gone in quarantine.

• This generation, especially, is used to playing the passive role in developing relationships.  Parents, schools and other institutions have taken care of that for them their entire lives.  These days, typically, universities have taken care of that as well.

• It is hard to make new friends.  In quarantine, the opportunities are reduced by many hours a day and many opportunities a week.  This is a major problem for modern Freshmen (look at the item above this one) and most of them don’t know how to create their own opportunities unguided by an adult or a system.

• A sudden experience of freedom pretty much always comes with a sudden expansion of responsibilities.   That transition is usually clumsy; this year, it is almost random.  What it the student in charge of and what are they not in charge of?

• Time management is an Achilles’ heel for most college freshmen; being stuck in their rooms for hours a day is now forced on most of them.  Few of them are prepared to know how to manage their down time when the same computer they recreate with is now their professor, friends, and job!  They end up getting much less sleep and have almost nothing to show for it.

• In quarantine, the activities that require students to be outdoors is greatly reduced… even just walking to-and-from classes, to-and-from their cars, etc.

• Time on screens becomes quickly unhealthy for people.  The sedentary nature is part of that; eye dryness and light irritation is another; drowsiness and sleep problems are part of it as well.  Suddenly, 2 hours watching YouTube, plus 2 hours playing games, plus 3 hours of texting broken across a day, plus 2 hours of homework – all on a screen –  has 4 hours of class and 2 hours of job issues added on.  Does 15 hours on a screen sound healthy to anyone?  Students are texting between talking to students or sitting in a classroom with a lecture, they are texting between online classes!

I think I could continue the list, but I will point out only that in the last few years, adolescence, the phase of life set aside for focusing on and developing a sense of identity, has been expanding.  This is its own article, but college freshmen today, in a general sense, are only about halfway through adolescence.  

When I was a college freshman, we were understood to be done with adolescence.  Most universities have adapted to these not-children/not-adults pretty well with common activities, life preparedness classes, mentoring programs, student life programs, etc.

Most of those are closed right now.

One more:

Adolescence is also a time of great emotional swings – whether you (or your child ) shows them or not.  The angst is real, and really experienced.  Depression is common and anxiety is almost universal.  If you are 50, your most common bad dreams are probably STILL from this era of your life and there is a reason for that.

Next:  what are some ideas for helping them out.  Usually I wait a week between articles, but right now that seems cruel.  I will try to post it tomorrow.