Stress of Planning for College

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm”. This quote by Winston Churchill demonstrates the fact that success isn’t possible without failing multiple times with enthusiasm. That is the problem with high school students nowadays is that they might not know how to handle “failing” at something because they are taught at an early age that everything should be done right the first time. Instilling this idea at such a young age will stick with the child throughout their life and it could possibly become damaging to their psyche. College planning is also a big thing for high school juniors and causes stress that can make them take out their stress on their friends, families, and even schoolwork. That is not what it should be about though especially for teens in high school because these are their final years to actually be children.

Stress also has negative impacts on the mental health of not only teenagers but people of all ages. I think that there should be less pressure placed on students from teachers, parents, administrators, and other influential adults. L. Robert Kohls said that Americans are always focused on their future orientation because it is something that we can control in this crazy whirlwind called life and it is something that WE can make better. The most detrimental effect of stress is the effect that it has on the mental health status of many American teenagers as they deal with other overwhelming events that occur in their lives.

Stress is a normal physical response to events that make you feel threatened or upset your balance in some way (Smith and Segal). Binge drinking is often associated with adolescents that have stressful events occurring in their lives and based on whether or not the adolescent is getting a lot of support for their parents and peers alike. Also, stress has an impact on the hormones that are produced by teens during puberty, the study showed that if affected the learning ability (Aseltine, Gore). Stress effects multiple parts of our mental status, from cognitive abilities to behavioral problems; stress causes memory problems, inability to concentrate, poor judgement, feeling overwhelmed, depression or general unhappiness, procrastination or neglecting responsibilities, using alcohol and drugs to relax, and nervous habits. The most common causes of stress are being to busy, whether it be homework load by numerous teachers, or having a sense of perfectionism that is instilled by overbearing parents (Smith and Segal).

I think that teens need to be taught how to deal with stress and whether that be how to deal with stress, or learn how to relax, or learn a quick form of stress relief. Teens can begin to deal with their stress by taking charge of their thoughts, emotions, schedule, environment, and the way they deal with problems. I think also having friends in college might scare and stress out a lot of high schoolers because they tend to over exaggerate when talking about the level of difficulty college can be (Smith and Segal). With high levels of stress many teenagers turn to having sexual intercourse and it’s usually unprotected. This leads to the transfer of sexually transmitted diseases and other harmful things (Today Network). I am hoping to get the word out with the negative impacts of stress that can be brought on by college planning and they are efficient.

Some I believe that college planning should not be as stressful as it is made out to be and I think that when students are looking at different colleges and applying for them that teachers should lessen the work load that they normally give students. If they were to do this than many students would not feel as thinly stretch as they already do. Hopefully the stress levels of teens can fall to a safe level and they will be able to handle the tremendous change from high school to college.