Margarita Artoglou

When I scroll through Facebook, I sometimes see articles promising to teach you how “to adult” and links that will provide you with 16 gifs that perfectly describe “adulting.” The word is colloquially used as a verb to describe grown-up, responsible behavior and the concept has apparently thrown college students into stress-overload.

According to a 2015 survey from the Center for Collegiate Mental Health at Penn State, half of all students who visit campus counseling services across the country experience anxiety. At East Carolina University, steps are being taken to help students with these increased levels of mental pressure through a new program called Recognition, Insight and Openness (RIO) which teaches students stress management methods such as self-talk, journaling and mindfulness, according to NBC News.

While the actions of the university are commendable and will probably provide a great amount of help to students, the university’s explanations of students’ increased anxiety levels oversimplify the situation at hand and suggest that it does not fully understand the context of student’s stress.
East Carolina University officials state participation awards in childhood have led to students’ inability to deal with failure.

“[Millennials] have received a lot of recognition for participation and all get something for being involved,” ECU Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Virginia Hardy told NBC News. “But they didn’t have to manage the emotions that come with not being successful.”

While it may be true that there is still a third grade soccer participation trophy somewhere in my basement, it is also true that I took my first standardized test that same year, and would continue to take standardized tests until I graduated high school. We may be the generation of participation awards, but we are also the generation of constant scrutiny and judgment.

The reason we have difficulty dealing with failure is not because we have floated through our entire lives being told how wonderful we are. The reason that the prospect of a lack of success is causing more panic attacks among students is we really cannot afford to fail. Tuition prices are constantly rising, and we are constantly being informed of how competitive the job market is, all while student debt looms over our heads. The pressure to perform has skyrocketed.

We constantly hear stories about unemployed grads still living with their parents, along with huge sums of student debt. When we are in danger of failing a class, then, we start to worry: Will I still be able to graduate in time if I have to retake this class? How badly will it hurt my GPA? Will I get into grad school? Will I find an internship if my GPA is not perfect? It is so easy to get caught up in a worst-case scenario in your own mind.

So it is no wonder that students are feeling increased levels of anxiety in a world full of stressors. I reject the idea that praise for participation during childhood has resulted in a generation of young adults who simply cannot deal with failure just because they have never had “to manage the emotions that come with not being successful.”

My soccer participation trophy did not change the fact that I never once made a goal the entire season and fully understood that I was by far the worst player on the team. Realistically, every single one of us has experienced failure in some capacity, and the idea that our upbringing did not prepare us to deal with failure at all is absolutely ridiculous.

Hardy also told NBC News that conflict resolution in residence halls is a source of stress for students because of social media. Hardy states that millennials “can’t manage face-to-face in the real world and can’t resolve conflicts in the residence hall,” as if college-aged students have never held an in-person conversation until freshman year move-in day.

Hardy’s commentary on the increase in anxiety completely misses the mark, and sounds like a stereotypical baby boomer complaining that kids these days are too spoiled and are always glued to their phones.

We might joke and make memes and Buzzfeed listicles about how stressed we are about “adulting,” but joining the competitive and expensive real world is a scary undertaking.

If university counseling services are to help the nation’s increasingly anxious student body, they need to recognize that post-grad life is a legitimate source of concern.

Margarita Artoglou, FCRH ’18, is a communication and media studies major from Queens.