National Post · Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2011
Re: One In Four Students Are Depressed: Study, Jan. 24.
University days are not a happy and carefree time for a lot of my students. Many of them are working off campus to pay for the over-priced textbooks, fees raised high due to funding cutbacks and living expenses. They struggle to juggle their schedules to accommodate lectures and seminars in addition to the long hours of studying necessary to do well in my courses.
Very few have time for much social life. Being a university student is not as easy today as it was for me in the 1970s. And it is much harder to get a good job with a BA than it used to be.
Another factor that may contribute to mental stress among students is that a higher portion of young people attend university than ever before. Many are clearly unsuited to university life. For them, sitting through my 100-minute lectures on the intricacies of China's political system or international human rights institutions must be a subtle form of torture. Their too-often-befuddled exam answers and ungrammatical and confused term papers suggest to me that many would be happier working with their hands and learning a trade with good job prospects and good income.
Charles Burton, associate professor, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ont.
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/University+longer+time/4160421/story.html#ixzz1C32JgaP0
