Chronic Stress: College

While sitting in lecture this week learning about stress, I realized that college, especially big universities like U of M, are the perfect example of chronic stressor. There are constant exams, papers, student organizations, overcrowding of dining and lecture halls, and sickness everywhere. An outsider looking in may think that college is a place of fun and freedom, but the continuous hassle of studying and lack of personal space makes this place an incubator of physiological stress and attention fatigue. 

One example of a stressful stimulus are the exams associated with all of your classes. My classes this semester have at least two exams each and most of them fall within a three-week span. I know that I need to start studying early for all of these exams, but my Medieval Spanish class is harder than the rest and I don’t understand what’s going on. This adds to the stress of exams as I am trying to cram my brain with all of the details of six classes, and then out of nowhere my sustainability exam has an essay question about Paul Ehrlich, whom I didn't study! The moral of this story is that exams carry the weight of stress far ahead of the actual testing day, they are stressful while your taking them, and surprises within the exam are even more stressful. 

Another stressor is overcrowding, and large universities happen to be very good at loading lecture halls and dinning rooms to capacity at all times. Between overcrowding in lecture/dining halls and having to share dorm rooms, students have very few opportunities for personal space and escape from the noise and flood of information. Personally, overcrowding causes me to become irritable and inefficient in my work as my personal space is constantly being infringed upon and there is a lot of things going on at once. My attitude becomes even worse when I know that I am stuck in this situation for an extended period of time. 

And although disease is not directly caused by stress, people are more susceptible to disease when they are stressed, due to degradation of their immune system. This explains why a large number of students at U of M are sick on and off throughout the first semester. The body needs time to become familiar with the surrounding threats as well as time to adapt to these threats. So between second semester and a year or two on campus the student builds familiarity with stress and the common flu. But not only does the chronic stress of being in college raise the probability of getting sick, getting sick within the first semester or around midterms also raises your stress level. During my freshman year I got sick twice and both happened to be around the time of my calculus 2 exams, which made math at Michigan even worse than it already was. But as a junior I haven’t gotten sick yet this semester, and I’m hoping I don’t.

Although directed attention and stress are separate entities, they are heavily related. Having a good cognitive map of your college schedule, your routine and your study habits, reduces the amount of directed attention required to function properly. The overuse of directed attention in general, or due to the lack of a clear cognitive map, can easily add an extra load of stress. And as you may have noticed, stress and directed attention fatigue can create a positive feedback loop in which they work together to get worse. As a freshman I didn’t know all of the secret study places on campus and I struggled most of the year in being effective while studying in my cramped dorm room. Now however I use the fourth floor of the UGLi, in which I have a great vantage point to see the people walking to class and to take in the beauty of the diag. I have a much clearer cognitive map of the UGLi now and I use a lot less directed attention in trying to find a spot to study, as well as trying to focus in a poor environment.

I guess what I am trying to say is that college is a constant source of stress, and this stress comes in 3-month intervals from anywhere between two and eight years. But on the bright side, as you become more familiar with life at the University of Michigan, your stress levels and directed attention fatigue, should become less of a chronic problem.