Coming to college can be a challenging time for many. It is the time we move away from our parents, our friends, and what we are used to for the first time. Some people are better equipped to handle this and even look forward to it. However, some struggle with this change greatly. Change is not for everyone and being far away from their home often makes them wonder how to properly cope with their struggles. In college, this can easily lead to recreational drugs, binge drinking, or even suicide attempts.
Edith Sherburne is a senior majoring in Psychology here at MCLA. For her internship she is looking into creating a student support network on campus. During the week of April 9th, Edie was found tabling in the Campus Center asking if people would fill out a brief survey based on their experience with mental health and counseling services. I took this as an opportunity to interview Edith on her findings and her interview.
When I asked Edie how she came up with this idea she said she wanted to go deeper than just support and focus more on the mental health aspects of things. She is also hoping this will bring the community together as well as dropping the amount of mental health incidents on campus. She was looking into the WPI model and tried fitting it to MCLA’s needs.
The student support network she is trying to add to MCLA will hopefully be a program where a handful of students get trained every academic year in interpersonal skills and how to identify mental health concerns. It will be a voluntary program, however, she has high hopes of many people being interested in participating. Especially since the skills being taught will help those students in more ways than one.
The program isn’t exactly going to be putting students responsible for counseling other students but more for being able to identify the risks. This program will be designed to look into more than just suicide risks but also on binge and recreational drinking, as well as students being more aware of the resources offered on campus and knowing where to send a friend or peer when they are going through a rough time.
The biggest point Edie wants to make is that this is not one large solution, instead one small step to a greater solution. In time, she hopes the community will come together to help one another when in a rough time. Many students will know by the end of the training how to help and where to send people when help is needed.