Senior Side Effects, a series on senior stress, is trying to take the discussion to the next level. Through a series of intimate interviews, our goal is to document the anxieties and aspirations of members of the senior class and get a better understanding how students deal with them.

Seniors face stress about uncertain economy

Senior Jennifer Dennard is a strong student at a top-20 university who hails from Dalton, Ga. She studies frequently and characterizes herself as a hard worker, who takes pride in what she does. Her goals are specific: Ph.D., think tank or Teach for America.

She says — with confidence — things will work out next year. But what if they don’t?

There is something different at stake for every senior next year: relationships, friendships and professional futures are just a few. Compound these concerns with high unemployment and a difficult job landscape and even polished students like Dennard start to sweat.

Seniors are stressed.

“I guess I didn’t realize how big a difference applying for things and sort of thinking about the future would take of time and emotional capabilities,” Dennard said. “There is only so long you can think about what you are doing next year before you just say, ‘Oh my God!’”

Christy Waggoner, assistant director of the Vanderbilt Career Center, said the office contends with senior anxiety on a daily basis.

“In a way our office is something like reality therapy for students,” she said. “Students are on a threshold and there are pressures from every angle. It takes courage to face them.”

The Career Center offers career coaching and sessions to help students decide what their interests are. The office also coordinates the on-campus recruiting.

Assistant Professor Michael Vollman, who specializes in stress at the Vanderbilt School of Nursing, said seniors are at a transitional point in their lives. They are leaving the built-in infrastructure of college and moving on to something unknown. The pressures they face, like fear of future social isolation and failure, are classic triggers.

One of the most common stressors, he said, is likely a familiar one for graduating seniors: uncertainty.

This is a point senior Anna Jiang said she understands.

“I don’t feel like my entire life hangs in the balance, but in a way my professional life does,” Jiang said. “I am at a point where I have to pick the right path.”

But Jiang admits there will be no way to know for sure if she has.

Dealing with stress
Stress is a rubric, but what matters in the process is how students interpret it. Vollman explained that anxiety — one way humans react to stress — can mount when people believe they do not have the resources to deal with the stressors in their lives.

“If you get a high phone bill but have the funds to pay it from your bank account, you can move on from that insult,” Vollman said. “But if you do not have enough money, that is an entirely different situation.”

Students trying to get a job in a competitive field in a difficult market can easily translate this experience to their lives, he said. They do not know if they have what it takes to face the challenge.

Low self-esteem may amplify the feeling, too, Vollman said.

“Patients will react to their world based on their own interpretations, not reality,” he said. If a student feels they are unable to deal with the strain – regardless of reality – they will likely experience the effects of stress.

“Under this pressure, is not uncommon for people to practice avoidant behaviors when they are worried or stressed,” Vollman said. “This can mean anything from using alcohol, drugs or simply ignoring the situation.”

Waggoner said her office terms ignoring the situation the “head-in-the-sand syndrome.”
“The down economy is so intimidating — there are experienced professionals hunting for jobs,” she said. “It can just be too much.”

There is not a good way to estimate how many students deal with the anxiety by just ignoring the situation. Still, it is interesting to note that only 27 percent of students come in for the initial coaching assessment based on data from the 2008-2009 school year. Only about 35 percent of the senior class moves on to graduate or professional school, the center reported.

The impact
The effects of stress create serious impacts on students’ lives, too.

“Stress certainly causes cognitive, emotional and physical impacts,” Vollman said.

This is something Vanderbilt’s Psychological and Counseling Center has observed as well. Director Dr. Rhonda Vennable said the center sees seniors each year for counseling on the subject but would prefer they come earlier for coaching.

The organization offers an online, confidential set of self-exploration questions.

Vollman said stepping back for some perspective, exercising and investing in building relationships with people are some of the best defenses against the impact of stress. But students should not hesitate to seek professional help if stress becomes overwhelming.

It might also help, he said, to understand that this year will pass for seniors. Waggoner said this is something the Career Center stresses as well.

“I am always rooting for the Vanderbilt student,” Waggoner said. “They are in clubs and writing papers and now they have to look for jobs. But these are qualified students, and they will do well.”

Staying positive, she said, is crucial to the process.

This is a sentiment senior Guy Kopsombut echoed.

“Senior year is stressful because not only are you deciding what you want to do with your future, but you are leaving your friends, too,” he said. “You are leaving the college atmosphere and going into a big unknown. So you get stress from that.

“But eventually I think that it will all be OK, at least according to everyone else in the world. It will be hard, but we will get there.”