Online service for students combats strain of transition

Worries about “fitting in”, finances and family expectations register as the top concerns of first-year students but the good news for those feeling stressed, says Carmel Sayers, is you’re not alone.

As this year’s crop of new entrants to higher education edge towards the end of their first semester, the Kerry native is helping to launch a new website to support students with the psychological strains of college life.

She has first-hand testimony of some of them herself, having opted to study in Dublin – a 10 hour train and bus journey from her home in Derrymore on the Dingle peninsula. “It was difficult to adjust. I went to a small primary school, with 14 children in the whole school. Because home was so far away, and it cost €75 in fares to get there, I didn’t go back for two or three months.”

Hardest was the separation from her best friends at home. “They were in Cork or elsewhere and had other things going on. We wouldn’t talk for ages. It was hard trying to figure that out; it was weird for everyone. It’s only when you’re in college, and talk to friends there that you realise other people have the same experiences.”

The new website is being set up by the mental health charity ReachOut.com in conjunction with the Irish Association of University and College Counsellors.

A 2012 mental health study, “My World Survey”, found that a quarter of young adults reported mild to moderate depression, while a further 14 per cent reported as severe depression.

Some 77 per cent of the sample said they would go online for support while only 34 per cent said they would use student counselling services.

The launch is timely as an ESRI conference in Dublin heard this week that the period when students are most likely to drop out of college is in the first semester. The period just after Christmas can be especially difficult with many people who had been studying away from home experiencing a fresh bout of anxiety.

Latest figures show 9 per cent of students at university and 17 per cent of those at institutes of technology drop out between first and second year. Those receiving a grant, or who went into college at a lower points entry, were more likely to drop out.

Sayers (22), who graduated this week in communications from DCU, says she first came across ReachOut.com when a friend of hers was experiencing mental health problems. She started to draw on its resources herself, including advice on how to plan best for the academic year.

A participant on DCU’s access programme, she says the transition from second level was aided by by a special induction course laid on by the university. “Everyone on DCU Access came in a week before the other students so you would know a few people at the outset. They got us all to do a presentation as well because they didn’t want people to be scared of that.”

Sayers believes she put too much pressure on herself in the early days of college. “I was the eldest in my family and the first to go to college. My mum was trying to pull me back and say, ‘Relax, things will work out’. But I was worried about money. I come from a modest background and I didn’t want my parents to worry about it. I think I caused most of the pressure myself.”

For more on the new website, described as a “dedicated online space for third leve students in Irelant”, see ie.reachout.com.