DEAR Vanderbilt, Wake Me Up When September Ends

    Midterms are upon us. This means a mad scramble to fit studying, hanging out with friends and viewing the latest episode of Big Bang Theory into the precious twenty-four hours that make-up the day. And while at times this seems impossible, thousands of Vandy students have proven that yes, it can be done!
    While laying outside of Wilson today enjoying the beautiful fall weather and studying for my International Politics exam, it became apparent to me how such small things in our daily lives can relieve stress. Even though I had a midterm that would comprise a significant portion of my grade in less than an hour, I felt at ease basking in the sunlight. Ahhh, the simple pleasures.
This month, our group DEAR Vanderbilt conducted a survey to find out the causes of students’ stress and activities they enjoy to alleviate this tension. Again I realized how the small things allow people to escape from the stresses of everyday life. Many of the participants in the survey wrote that they work-out, talk to friends and family and sleep to combat stress. While none of these responses surprised me, I was taken back by the level students chose to rate their stress. When asked to describe their stress on a scale of one to ten with one being the lowest and ten being the highest, the average was a six. Based on how much stress my friends claim to face due to homework, extracurricular activities and personal reasons, I figured the average would be higher.  When given the options of family and friends, school, social image, significant other, work and extracurricular activities as causing the most stress, participants selected school and extracurriculars. Personally I too find school and extracurricular activities the most stressful. Not saying the others aren’t stressful because they definitely stress me out from time to time, but the most prominent sources of my stress stem from school and extracurricular activities.
As I write this on a Friday afternoon (after my midterm and classes are over) and the weekend glimmers on the near horizon, stress seems far away for the moment. And even though it is, I know as soon as Monday rolls back around, it will be there to greet me again. But even though this is the case, I will enjoy every second of the weekend and when stress appears once again next week, I will at least have enjoyed my short break and the nice fall weather.

Peace out Vandy!

This pie chart represents the breakdown of the stress levels of our testing pool.


This chart shows the numerical breakdown of the causes of stress.