Second in a series: Ask the Expert
You asked and they answered. This week’s Ask the Expert questions come from students Laura Puente, an interdisciplinary language studies senior; Larissa Angeles, a biology junior; and Leonardo Sosa, a computer science senior. They asked how to avoid the college blues.
Puentes and Angeles both said they have considered dropping out at some point during their college careers due to stress and the overwhelming responsibilities of both work and school.
Asked why she decided to stay, Puentes replied that she set her goal and knew she needed to reach it.
“I feel like there should be more help tutoringwise,” Angeles said, “because a lot of kids think, ‘I can’t do it, or it’s too hard.’”
She also said many students have a hard time transitioning from high school to college.
“A lot of them get depressed; I was there,” she said. “What really helped me was talking to a teacher,” Angeles said. She said her teacher inspired her to stay in school and advised her that if she dropped out, she’d probably never come back.
Angeles suggests that UTRGV experts look into “more help for the students and probably somebody that meets with you weekly or monthly.” She emphasized her belief that this should be a requirement so that students are made aware of the resources available to them.
Sosa asked, “What resources are out there for the students to take advantage of?”
“I mean, when we first started we didn’t know we had a lab here for computer science,” Sosa said. “We could’ve used their help and gotten assignments done easier, but we didn’t know.”
Asked what kind of advice would have helped avoid her desire to drop out, Puentes replied, “I think that before you get into the program you want, it is a little difficult because not all the advisers are on the same page. And then if you go to any specialization they’re like, ‘Oh, well, there’s nobody here to talk to you because you’re not in the program.’ So, you’re kind of lost.”
Puentes said her biggest question for UTRGV experts is “What are they doing to make a difference?”
Our UTRGV experts
Maria Alejandra Mazariegos, a clinical therapist for the Counseling Center, said that when students are stressed out, they tend to stop sleeping, socializing and eating.
“The advice is to do the opposite when you are feeling stressed out or overwhelmed,” Mazariegos said. “That’s exactly the time to implement some extra TLC or as we like to call it, self-care.”
Self-care can look like any kind of activity where the benefit is for your own mental well-being. Meditation is all the rage right now and it is an excellent tool to destress, Mazariegos said.
“Going to the gym and sweating it out is the best antidote to stress,” she said. Thirty minutes of vigorous high-intensity workouts four to five times a week can combat stress.
Mazariegos said that if the do-it-yourself strategy doesn’t work, that’s when the Counseling Center recommends therapy.
Asked what advice she would give to a student who is frustrated with the advising system, Mazariegos replied, “Here at Counseling we would approach it by trying to promote the student to feel confident enough and be assertive enough to make sure their needs are heard and met.”
Leticia Jaramillo, associate director of the Academic Advising Center, said her advice for students who are feeling overwhelmed is to seek out resources.
“We just started this differentiated advising, where we ask those types of questions, and then depending on how they answer those kinds of questions, then we refer them to those resources that we have available on campus,” Jaramillo said in an interview with The Rider.
Resources include the Counseling Center, Writing Center, Learning Center, etc., depending on the students’ concern. Counselors speak with the students and get to know them better before referring them to a specific resource, Jaramillo said.
With a freshman retention rate of 76.5% and 69% rate of two-year students as of Fall 2018, UTRGV’s dropout rate is lower than the 30% national rate of college freshmen who drop out after their first year.
For the 2018-2019 academic year, 70% of Americans will study at a four-year college, but less than two-thirds will graduate with a degree, according to CollegeAtlas.org.
Asked what advice she has for students who want to drop out, Jaramillo replied for students to at least try to attend part time.
“We can even talk to them about working on campus, where they can work as a peer adviser, work-study, part time and come to school at the same time,” she said. “So, the work schedule can be more flexible and they can work around their student schedule to give them that opportunity to continue school.”
Her advice for students in search of a peer mentoring program on campus is to contact the Engaging Peers in College (E.P.I.C.) Mentoring Program at UTRGV, where first-year students receive advice from upperclassmen.
Advisers monitor students’ course loads, check GPA’s, programs and make sure that students apply for graduation. Advisers try to understand the type of course loads students’ are taking on so that they can properly extend their services, Jaramillo said.
“What we suggest to students is to get study buddies,” she said, to make them feel more confident about their decisions. Her final piece of advice for students who are feeling alone in their college journey is to make connections with people in their major and on campus.
