Organize and Evaluate Your Time and New Social Experiences at College

Quick Tip: Think Locally

When you're making up your daily schedule, think locally, not globally. Instead of thinking that you have to write your fifteen-page history paper this week, think, "I have to write five paragraphs today between two and three o'clock." Breaking down your work into manageable sections will keep you from feeling overwhelmed.

Reach Out

Many graduates look back on their college years and say that their most valuable experiences involved getting to know people of ­ different cultures and backgrounds. Keep an open mind while you're in school, and don't get stuck in your own small world.  You may never again find yourself in such a diverse environment, so take advantage of the situation and find out what makes other people tick.

A diverse environment gives you the opportunity to take your family beliefs and values and hold them up against those of others. How do your classmates feel about religion? Sexual mores? Politics? Gathering information and mixing it up with your own does not betray the connection with your family. It is part of growing and maturing.

Accepting and enjoying people who look and act differently from you is also a great stress reducer. It helps you feel more connected to your college community, and it will raise your comfort level when you find yourself in a class or circumstance with a bunch of "strange" people around you. Reach out and enjoy the situation.

Breaking Free

Naturally, different students respond differently to mental health problems. However, I've noticed that students from diverse minority backgrounds often don't get the health care services they need before reaching college. In fact, a new report from the U.S. surgeon general, Dr. David Satcher, has found that minorities in the United States suffer a disproportionate burden of mental illness for several reasons. He says that they often have less access to services than other Americans, they receive lower-quality care, and they are less likely to seek help when they are in distress. The report noted that while serious mental disorders like depression, schizophrenia, panic disorder, bipolar disease, and substance abuse occur in all races, ethnicities, and socioeconomic classes, minorities tend to be overrepresented among those most vulnerable and in need of mental health treatment.^*

If you come from a family that sees mental health problems as a personal weakness or from a family that doesn't believe in seeking treatment for emotional pain or cannot afford to, now is the time to break free of these things that have kept you from taking care of your mental health. The services offered in your college community are there to help you. There is no shame or family disgrace in taking this step. It is an intelligent and mature person who can recognize a problem and ask for appropriate help to find a solution regardless of race, nationality, or ethnicity.

^*U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Mental Health: Culture, Race, and Ethnicity: A Supplement to Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, Aug. 26, 2001). [http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/mentalhealth/cre/exec summary-1.html].