College Student Stress Levels: A Research Booklet

Stress/Time Management of College Students

What’s going on and how could we help?

Abstract

The goal of this research project is to try and put a dent in the greater issue of college student stress levels. To narrow down the scope of the research, we approached the topic through time management: how students manage their time and how/if that correlates to the stress they experience.

Increasing stress amongst young adults is a national, international epidemic that plagues many researchers, psychologists, scholars, and educators. Exacerbated by the pandemic and an ever changing landscape of uncertainty, 87% of college students describe their lives to be stressful (1). The stressors that compound on each individual varies dramatically, but perhaps there is something that could be addressed from the perspective of the education itself: the workload and organization.

Methodology

The bulk of the research for this project was completed together with Bruce Xie and Qinzhi Wang, then expanded upon through additional interviews and findings. The research of this project can be roughly categorized as probes and findings.

Probes

A series of field activities designed to engage students based on the RISD and Brown campus. This included an interactive data points board, drawings, and interviews.

Findings

A collection of existing research, curriculum, products, and systems, which we referenced in synthesizing and analyzing the results of our probes.

Interactive Data Set

We wanted to start off by understanding what’s usually on college students’ minds, what’s more important to them.

We moved the board between a few locations, at each location

4-10 hours: Page Robinson, Faunts, the Met Cafeteria, the Portfolio Cafe, and the Industrial Design Building. In each location the board was placed in an area of high visibility.

“On a scale of 1 through 10, this is how stressed I feel on an average day...”

“I agree with the statement ‘if it’s work I enjoy, it doesn’t feel like work.’”

“My outlook on what’s more important has changed dramatically in the last year/two (Juniors and above).”

“I feel like there are tools available to me (from school) when I’m stressed.”

Some strategies students use to destress

Notes from the Interviews Sleep CrochetingKaraoke!

Interviews & Drawings

We opened most interviews with an open ended drawing exercise for students to visualize their week. Using the drawing as a guide, we asked students to comb through the happenings in their week, which parts they find stressful and why, followed by what tools and strategies they would use to destress. Follow up questions were added when appropriate. Students sampled from Brown and RISD, across departments and years. These summaries are organized based on common themes discussed by the students.

Interview consent read and outline given to participant.

From top to bottom

fig.1 Drawn by participant describing how they feel about taking care of their younger sister.

fig.2 An EFS students’ schedule drawn by participant.

Priorities, Meaning & Achievement

One of the most common themes across drawings and interviews was the importance of finding meaning in what we do. Having something important that lends itself to long term goals and pursuits not only guides people’s scheduling, but also can become the object of most stress and relaxation.

One participant describes the importance of taking care of their younger sister. Their drawing of a week reflects this care, taking up the entirety of their page. The love for their sister encompasses the stress and joy of their life: both the source of love and affection, and fear of anything terrible happening to it.

Another participant enrolled currently in the EFS (Experimental Foundations

Studies) describes a similarly all-encompassing experience. While EFS is known for its rigors, she did not find it to be stressful because she finds the work to be enjoyable and meaningful. Anything that interferes with what she enjoys then becomes a source of stress.

THAD (Theory and History of Art and Design) causes me the most stress because of the lectures and all the readings you have to do... I spend a lot of time sitting in the class, but then when I walk out of the classroom, I don’t think I gained anything from it. I feel very insecure about the content.

ZY, Freshmen

I don’t work well in free time, or at least not completely free time. I like crocheting because I know that I’m going to end up with something eventually. The way I watch shows, it’s like, ‘oh, I’m going to finish the storyline and I’m going to understand it when I’m done.’

The sense of achievement and purpose can also be calming outside of a primary pursuit. One participant, while quite stressed out by her back-toback work and classes, finds relaxation in the process of working towards completion. Sometimes the enjoyment and passion for a subject compels us to overlook physical health.

HJ, sophomore

A 4th year student at RISD schedules his personal work between 8pm and 1am, “I usually don’t have class in the morning so I can be up all night.” He also tries to implement more work into the week so there could be more free time over the weekend.

From left to right

fig.3 A weekly schedule drawn by a Sophomore student at Brown. She found Sundays through Tuesdays to be the most stressful.

fig.4 Week drawing of a 4th year student at RISD. Circled numbers (10+, 2+, and 6+) indicates the beginning of mornings, afternoons, and evenings.

Space & Compartmentalization

While some students agreed with the sentiment that purposeful work is not stressful, others find it difficult to perceive enjoyable work as anything but work. Compartmentalization emerges as a means of keeping work/life balanced, especially the traversing between physical spaces.

In figure 5, the student marked emotions associated with each location (the ID building, and the Brown campus uphill). The locations becomes a container for the stresses associated with the work, allowing her to find joy and rest in sleep and her other weekend activities.

In figure 6, the student put work, eating, and sleeping in a cycle of icons, and outside of the cycle, icons representing activities they do to destress including working out, soccer,

and gaming. The separation between the two sets of icons and use of arrows between activities shows a clear division between where the student conducts these activities and the cyclical vs sporadic nature these occur.

From left to right

fig.5 Drawings of a week by a sophomore in industrial design. The scribbles denotes work and study.

fig.6 Drawings of a week by a RISD student using only icons and arrows.

fig.7 Drawings of a week by a sophomore at Brown composed to reflect the geographical locations of each event.

fig.8 Weekly drawing by a double majoring sophomore at RISD.

In figure 7, the student drew dioramas of the activities in their week on the page in a way that reflects the geographical relationship between these activities. ‘I started off, this is

the [Science Library], I have class for Arabic every morning, four times a week, my day always starts on these paths., And I would run into everyone in my class there... This is the shape of [the Arabic classroom], it’s a weirdly shaped room and it’s really stressful to do work there. I hate it... I’m thinking a lot about how much time it’s going to take to travel around to various places I have to go to.”

Besides the stress of the Arabic classroom, Physical locations also themselves reminds her of relaxation.

I often go on walks. I’ve moved around quite a lot in my life, but I’ve always lived near a river, which is why I go to the river so often. There’s something particularly calming about rivers to me. AM, Sophomore

This division of spaces is especially crucial in finding rest for RISD students with rigorous studio practices. A RISD double major interviewee described the ability to keep her work contained in the studio being helpful.

The stress in a space can also permeate into commute and other spaces. A senior residing in Providence and taking classes in Boston expresses: “it’s not the workload, but the teamwork is getting on my nerves a little bit. Then the morning commute usually carries on that stress.”

Compartmentalization also occurs without physical spaces. A grad student at Brown plans his week “almost entirely on [Google Calendar].” selects items to go on the calendar. “I try to keep my events with my friends more spontaneous about, but everything else like work meetings [goes on the calendar].”

From top to bottom

fig.9 Week of a grad student. He described his drawing to reflect his google calendar, which is how he tends to think about his week.

fig.10 Week of a senior in industrial design. The underlined portions are the areas/times of most stress.

fig.11 Supplementary to fig.10, strategies the student would use to help destress.

Balancing &Re-balancing

As we grow and change, our joys, stresses, and time tables also change. This was a common theme with some of the upperclassmen interviewed. “I think in my mind, the priority is ‘if I’m tired, I actually can’t get anything done, so [health and rest] is a part of the [work and study] itself,” shared a senior at RISD. “A lot of [the work] requires being in a good mood, being positive, being energetic, excited about the things to come, and these reboots are necessary. [I] realized the importance of this... I think last fall (2022). And before that I knew I had to make time, but I didn’t realize why I had to make time.”

This is also a shared sentiment with another senior student.

“During COVID I was doing an internship, and then ended up staying on full time for two

years and took another gap year. I think that gap year really cemented an attitude towards school. [Before that gap year] I think I was very much wrapped up in the idea that taking challenging mathematical, econ classes was going to be almost causational in the future professional outcomes that I wanted. But what I learned, for a year, which I think is so valuable, is that the people who are going to be [working really hard] at school are the same people who are going to be performing really well at work. It’s not so much the things you’re doing that are challenging in college that directly translates to success in the workforce. I think with that in mind, I came back to school, ‘let me just take the classes I feel good about, and make me feel confident. Not necessarily easy, but interesting and good.”

Tools & Strategies

Across RISD and Brown, students unanimously expressed that they don’t feel supported by the institution when moving through their stress. Also when asked what strategies they would employ to deal with their own stress or their friends’ stress, nobody would turn to university resources. Instead, students overwhelmingly preferred finding their own strategies, which happened to share a number of overlaps.

Not doing work. Just setting a time to not do anything de-stresses. FF, Fourth Year

Sleeping and“time spent doing nothing” was also a common theme. Students expressed contemplation and alone time to be important and rejuvenating

[With friends, at first] we would spend a lot of time [together] working on the main green, and then one day I was just like, “okay, let’s go to the main green, but not do work.”

HJ, Sophomore

Sleeping is one of the best ways [for me] to de-stress probably. I have a lot of anxiety, so I’m stressed what if I don’t get enough sleep, I will feel badly.

LB, Sophomore

I definitely think meaningful work is destressing, though it does depend on more so your work environment. I think I’ve done meaningful work and the work environment has sucked. Because of that. Even though I love the work that I’m doing, it still might be hard to do. But when you have a good work environment, like great bosses, great coworkers, it is more like kind of a friendly, social thing as well.

WTB, Masters PHD

Not only friends, but connections to family & friends, and meaningful social environments can help make work feel more impactful.

This year was my realization that social and family matters. You’re not living alone in this world. And the most real thing that you can leave to the world is how you make other people feel. Since we are studying abroad, the chances that you get to see your parents really decreases as the years go on.

ES, Senior

Findings

Group written reflections after finishing student interviews

The primary causes of stress from a time management perspective for college students can be grouped into factors outside of students’ control (external), and factors within students’ control(internal). These factors are often intertwined, but in terms of guiding design solutions and finding tangible means of approaching a solution, this will be an attempt to break it down.

External Factors

The most significant force in a students’ time table is overwhelmingly their education. The relationship ship between students’ stress and their classes also reflects greater sentiments of the students’ relationship with the institution. Based on interviews and studies, students’ frustration with school can be summarized into a lack of agency over pursuing their passions and a general distrust of the institution.

Based on the common theme of the data points and interviews, students clearly care deeply about their work and ability to achieve in areas of their interest. Friction came when they did not feel supported or encouraged to either investigate these interests, or when they felt inhibited from doing so because they are pressed for time. To an extent, the contrast of student empowerment through curricular agency can be observed by comparing interviews with RISD

students and Brown students. Most departments at RISD have a set of required classes students must take, alongside credit counts to be met in different practices (in/out of major credits, THAD credits, LAS credits, HPSS credits). While students feel generally empowered in their studies, there’s a more common sentiment especially amongst underclassmen that there are more aspects of their work they do not find meaning in. With upperclassmen this sentiment decreases, but within students who would not identify their school work as their passion, the sentiment remains.

Brown by contrast employs an open curriculum: outside of a few core coursework, students can select from any range of courses available, and as their interests focus, pursue a concentration, not a department. The division between lower and upper classmen continues, but the curricular agency offered

by Brown did not seem to offer solace for students. As put by one of the interviewee:

I think all the work that I do, is meaningful. I’m an Art History major. I have the time to be able to pick whatever classes I want, I’ve never taken a class because I feel like I have to. But that never doesn’t make it not feel like work sometimes.

[Whether] it feels like work depends a lot more on how I’m doing and the mindset that I’m in than the actual work. It’s more how I approach it.

This neutral, if not discouraged stance towards the university was equally reflected with students’ views on university provided stress-reduction resources. Both Brown and RISD offer counseling services to enrolled students, but none of the participants would call on them as a resource. The only institutional resource mentioned in students’ self care are gyms, sports teams, and general facilities.

This calls into question: can student’s stressful relationships to an institution like university change? Would change like this be beneficial to general improvements of student wellness? Are higher educational institutions at fault or responsible to student wellness? Does this compromise the current definition of an institutions’ educational mission? To end this section, I would like to leave with this quote.

American higher education has become what, in the business world would be called a mature enterprise: increasingly risk averse, at times self-satisfied, and unduly expensive. It is an enterprise that has yet to address the fundamental issue of how academic programs and institutions must be transformed to serve the changing educational needs of a knowledge economy. It has yet to successfully confront the impact of globalization, rapidly evolving technologies, an increasingly diverse and aging population, and an evolving marketplace characterized by new needs and new paradigms.

Alternative Universities: Speculative Design for Innovation in Higher Education, D J. Staley.

Internal Factors

Some of the main extrapolations from students’ desires and needs can be summarized as follows:

Students are acutely aware of their own stress and their friends’ stress. Stress for most is perpetual or cyclical, meaning it is either not “high priority enough” that students are willing to actively ignore it, or it is not a condition that goes away, but a returning condition that requires students to continue addressing it.

Students are not bad at time managing in a conventional sense. Most if not all participants understand what’s most important to them, and make the space and time to pursue them. Most of the stress comes from not having enough time to meet their own standards or the anticipation of possible failure.

While some students find it important to balance health, relationships, and achievement, many are willing to de-prioritize health for the other two. A more effective strategy for targeting college health might not be forcing students to change their priorities, but make it easier for students to succeed and find fulfillment in what they achieve, so they can feel assured to make the time and space to take care of their health.

Most students have work that they feel empowered in that “justifies the stress.” While ‘work I love doesn’t feel like work” is not true for all, fulfillment and happiness is overwhelmingly one of the best remedies for stress, whether it come from art, work, friends, family, crochet, or Netflix. It will be more effective to design for happiness than to design for stress elimination.

To better understand how to encourage happiness, can borrow from the Science of Happiness, coursework developed by professor Laurie Santos. A great deal of the strategies in the class are build on countering four “annoying features of the mind:” behavioral patterns that make it difficult for us to find more fulfillment.

1. Our intuitions are often wrong.

2. We cannot think in absolutes, even if we perceive a difference to be true, we can only think in relatives.

3. Our brains are very good at changing and adapting.

4. We are often incapable of realizing that we’ve changed and adapted.

Intuitively, we might attach the kind of happiness we seek with certain objects like jobs, academic achievement, money, but realistically, the fulfillment

This idea that knowing is half the battle. It’s not. We actually have to do all kinds of stuff other than just knowing stuff to change our behavior. If we really want to change our behavior, we have to change habits.

Laurie Santos, the Science of Happiness

most students find joyous does not have to be attached to any materiality.

The relativism and inability to recognize our own changes makes it difficult to savor and appreciate what we do have. In the context of this research, the fact that students can feel empowered by their work overall already, means that a better perception and grounding in this reality could help students reduce stress.

Design Opportunities

The tendencies of the mind that make it difficult for us to perceive happiness cannot be overcome by simply knowing. Long term habits and practices to reduce stress has to rely on students’ agency to seek meaningful happiness.

Two primary directions emerge from the probes and findings: to engage with systemic design specific to education or creating tools to help encourage experiences and behavioral change.

Systemic changes could follow in the footsteps of Alternative Universities, more speculative than concerned with implementation. This could also be more curricular design, a class or workshop like The Science of Happiness. There are a number of classes around the RISD and Brown Campus that share a similar purpose:

• Re-imagining Humanities Education: Curriculum Development for Secondary Schools, Laura A Snyder

• Meditation, Mindfulness, and Health, Eric B Loucks

• Creativity for a catalyst for Mindfulness: Designing for Education, Khipra Nichols

Tool based designs could lend itself in a number of directions as well. But to fully engage with all aspects of the research, it should be something that responds to: Students’ existing busy schedules.

Students’ desires to feel a sense of achievement, socialize, and compartmentalize/distance from primary stressors. Overall findings about happiness: the importance of finding fulfillment, savoring and recognizing the moment.

Mind-mapping of possible solutions based on the branches “physical solutions, tool based solutions, education based solutions, and systemic solutions”

Citations

Editorial Staff. “School Stress for College Students and Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms.” American Addiction Centers, September 13, 2022. https:// americanaddictioncenters.org/blog/ college-coping-mechanisms.

Staley, David J. 2019. Alternative Universities Speculative Design for Innovation in Higher Education. Baltimore, Maryland: John Hopkins University Press.

Santos, Laurie. 2020. The Science of Happiness. Yale University.

Brewer, Judson. Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind. New York: Avery, an imprint Penguin Random House, 2022.

Thank you to all the participants of our research. It’s a kindness to talk to a stranger through your own stress to lend them peace. Special Thanks to Bruce Xie and Qinzhi Wang, my research partners and support.. Thank you to Neil Nelson, not the guidance we had asked for but needed. And lastly Ayako Maruyama, I kindly and gently wait for your return.

end.

It’s been 30 densely packed pages, but it anything, I want to end on this quote from one of the interviews:

“You’re not living alone in this world. The most real thing that you can leave to the world is how you make other people feel.”