With the terror of exams right around the corner, many students are under added stress to do well in their classes and boost that GPA ever so slightly.
Sometimes this additional stress is especially hard on first-year students, who must adjust to newfound independence while juggling school and fun at the same time.
Certain studies show these pressures might play a role in affecting first-year students' mental health.
"College is much more personally, socially and academically challenging than high school," said Phil Meilman, Cornell University director of counseling and psychological services.
First years must adjust to new living conditions, including sharing a bathroom with hallmates or suitemates. "Knowing that 30 other people shower in the same shower you do is a big adjustment," first-year College student Erin Kilby said.
The Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California-Los Angeles published a report last year detailing the physical and mental hardships of the freshman year in college.
The report is based on the responses of 3,680 freshmen who answered surveys in the fall of 2000 and again the following spring.
The findings suggest many college students experience mental problems during their first year. While more than half of freshmen rated their emotional health "above average" at the beginning of the academic year, that number dropped to 45 percent by the end.
"College freshmen face a loss of specialness," said Russ Federman, University director of Counseling and Psychological Services. "They don't stand out any longer."
According to the report, the percentage of students feeling "overwhelmed by all that I had to do" increased from 32 percent to 44 percent after their first year.
"I haven't found any one thing alone particularly challenging," Kilby said. "It is the combination of managing my own time to do work, being away from home, making new friends and keeping in touch with old friends that is the challenge."
While many perceive adolescence as merely the "teen years," Federman believes adolescence extends until the mid-20s and is a time of tremendous change and transition.
"Freshmen are going from parental oversight to complete freedom," Federman said.
Some students face both internal and external responsibilities that can create added pressure.
"Besides the living conditions, adjustments to being away from home and hard work, there are external pressures from my parents and society to be successful in college in order to get a good job," Kilby said.
The report also found that the number of students feeling depressed at some point during the past year nearly doubled - from 8 to 16 percent.
"The anecdotal answer is that the problems being presented to college counselors are more severe and more numerous," Meilman said. "The media are paying more attention to depression and college mental health issues now."
Certain changes in behavior can indicate an individual suffers from depression.
"Depression can be determined by function and duration," Federman said. When normal functioning such as going to class, doing work and keeping up with daily activities becomes impaired, and the feeling of being overwhelmed lasts a week or more, these may be signs of depression, he added.
Other signs of depression include feeling forgetful, lacking focus, experiencing low levels of energy, not eating, and excessive sleeping or lack of sleep.
"Depression comes in different forms and ranges along a continuum from feeling blue to profound and morbid mood states as well as suicidal thinking," Meilman said.
Symptoms of depression can be alleviated by a healthy diet, routine exercise and regular sleep patterns, Federman said.
"Oftentimes sleep deprivation begins to feel like depression because they have many of the same symptoms," he added.
Both Federman and Meilman believe the increase in depression among college freshmen partially is due to a higher percentage of students already on medication when entering college.
"Psychiatric medications have been vastly improved in the past 15 years," Meilman said. "There are more students on medicine now than in years past."
He and Federman agree that students on medication might not have had the opportunity to go to college 10 to 15 years ago.
"The frequency of anti-depressants across this country is enormous," Federman said.
Anti-depressants are not habit forming and "people can stop usage when they want," he added.
Although most students enter college in a healthy state of mind, for some the adjustments and responsibilities grow too overwhelming to handle.
"I wish someone had told me how much harder it is after going home for winter break and then having to come back here," Kilby said. "It totally killed my motivation for second semester"
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