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We are nearing the end of fall quarter here at UCLA, and for most of us, that means our days are filled with the stress and dread that accompanies taking final exams and executing group projects. Thankfully this past Thursday, November 29, Her Campus UCLA had the privilege of hearing advice from NBA five time All-Star Kevin Love during a live stream of The New York Times Get With The Times event: The Mental Game With Kevin Love.
If you did not already know, Get With The Times is the The New York Times’ live series geared towards college students. Love’s segment was titled “The Mental Game With Kevin Love” and was centered around the growing issue of mental health on college campuses.
Love got really personal when discussing his essay “Everyone Is Going Through Something” that he submitted to The Players’ Tribune earlier this March. In the letter, Love recounts a panic attack he had during a game against the Atlanta Hawks. He explains how his panic attack felt like he was “fully having a heart attack.” Love’s honesty and vulnerability really brought a new perspective for a lot of students in Her Campus. We see Love as someone who is extremely successful in his craft, as he has even participated in and won gold in the 2012 Olympics. To see that even he deals with high anxiety and panic attacks allows us to relate to him and feel more validated with our own struggles.
UCLA is a rigorous and successful institution that prides itself on its student body. Many students can be described as high achieving and high-functioning individuals, but we rarely get to see the more closed off side that reveals the constant anxiety that comes from keeping up with the pressure to continue succeeding.
Kaitlyn Tang is a fourth year English Major and Her Campus UCLA writer who understands what it feels like to deal with the constant anxiety that comes with experience as a college student. When asked how she related to Love’s story, she explained, “School is often stressful enough, but many students also have work at a part-time job, an internship, they volunteer and participate in clubs as well. I think people definitely underestimate just how busy students’ lives are and often try to downplay the stress and anxiety we all have. We’re constantly worried about whether the rough direction we’re going through is the right one.”
“Downplaying our stress is not the answer, if anything it makes it worse. Listening with an open and kind heart is usually way more helpful than shutting us down. I think that Love validates student’s whirlwind feelings during an important times in our lives. We need to recognize that stress, anxiety and mental health are real problems. And denying them will get us nowhere.”
Kaitlyn and many other members of Her Campus UCLA believe that Love is pointing us toward the right direction of acknowledging that mental health for students is real and that we need to face it.