Student mental health is an important topic that deserves special attention. Why does student mental health need attention? What is the impact of the large amount of work given to students, and how can we help students who are experiencing mental health problems?
The tasks given to students are often a pressure that affects their mental health. Students are often burdened by a variety of dense coursework and tight assignment deadlines, The pressure from the tasks that students get can also be because they are not used to facing the world of lectures offline or offline. Students are sometimes still influenced by online learning in doing assignments, so that it can cause excessive pressure and stress, excessive task load pressure causes students to often procrastinate in doing assignments, this causes students to sometimes only be able to complete assignments when it is close to the deadline, this phenomenon among students is often referred to as, “Deadliner”.
Mental health of students is disrupted due to a lot of tasks has become a serious problem, because students do not hesitate to end their lives because of the burden of many tasks. This happened in 2021 where a student in Yogyakarta committed suicide, allegedly due to the stress of college assignments where this student drank rat poison in a boarding room, after testimony was conducted against the victim’s brother, the victim once told him that he had a lot of coursework so that the victim felt depressed due to this task coupled with two subjects which according to the victim felt heavy.
High academic load is a problem that is often faced by all students in the world. The demand to achieve academic performance in order to pursue the desired grade target, must sacrifice a lot of mind and physical health in order to complete many tasks, and meet strict academic requirements so that it causes stress, anxiety, and depression in students. Depression can cause prolonged feelings of sadness, loss of interest in usual activities, and can also lead to suicidal thoughts. Anxiety can cause excessive fear, tension, and panic attacks. Not only panic attacks, but there will also be the effects of stress, as stress can cause emotional tension, fatigue, and can even affect one’s physical health. This problem will be further exacerbated by pressure from the social environment, lack of social support, financial problems, and personal problems that can affect the overall mental health of students.
Students must be able and understand their obligations, both during lectures and when working on mandates in the form of completing coursework. So that from the coursework given, students are emphasized to be able to manage time, both rest time, time to do assignments and time to study. Time management is often referred to as time management. The key to time management is planning, without a plan it will not be successful and able to manage a time or achieve maximum results from an effort. Some ways that can help organize time management well include: Organize remembering the agenda by recording in a book, calendar or important notes both manually and digitally. Next, arrange the priority levels contained in the notebook that have been planned, starting from those that must be prioritized to those that are not. However, you must still make sure that the schedule that has been made must be routinely carried out every week and arranged manually. If so, the next step is to adhere to the schedule of activities that have been made every week.
Everyone within the campus or college environment has an important role to play in dealing with this issue. Starting from fellow students, who can provide support and care for each other, help each other with their coursework, help seek professional help if a friend has a very serious mental health problem, and finally do not underestimate the problems faced by friends.
Furthermore, universities should also play an active role in ensuring that students’ mental health is well maintained. Colleges can provide counseling and social support services for students, as well as raise awareness about mental health issues among students and faculty. Moreover, universities can reduce students’ academic load by reducing the number of assignments given, offering more flexible class schedules, and implementing programs that help students cope with stress and anxiety.
In this case, the role of lecturers is also very important in helping students overcome mental health problems. Lecturers have the capacity to provide support and direction to students, as well as provide constructive feedback to help them improve their academic performance. In addition, lecturers are able to introduce students to stress and anxiety management techniques, as well as provide advice on how to manage stress and anxiety.
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Author
- Nur Hasanah
- Mutiara Putri Rizanti
- Imilda Aprianti
- Imelda Intan Permata Sari
