Coping with College
Earlier in 2025, the American Council of Education published a survey regarding students’ mental wellbeing during the 2023-2024 academic school year. In summary: 49% of respondents said that they had feelings of loneliness; 76% of respondents said that they had experienced moderate to high levels of stress; and 77% of respondents said that mental or emotional difficulties had negatively impacted their academic performance for one to six days within the past four weeks.
Inevitably, college students will suffer from the various stressors in college students’ lives: navigating social environments, hectic schedules, and self-doubts. Instead of resigning to these anxieties that college life presents, Santa Monica College (SMC) students choose to confront these anxieties head-on.
Sando Sylla was born in California, but was raised in and graduated from high school in Ghana earlier this spring. He said that upon returning to the United States after such a long time, he felt some anxiety because he thought he would be treated differently. Instead, he found no difficulty fitting in at SMC.
Sylla admitted that he was aided by his energetic and extroverted personality type, but also appreciated the friendliness that his peers exhibited. “No one [here] is nasty,” Sylla said. “Putting yourself out there is the best way to make friends… [D]on’t overthink it.” He also admired the teacher’s willingness to delve into deeper, more historically sensitive and impactful content, claiming that the professors in the United States are “realer” than the teachers he had in Ghana.
Time management is also a concern among SMC students. One student, Ginger Simpson, who graduated from high school in 2023 and is majoring in theater, shared her daily schedule.
On Mondays and Wednesdays, she would have class starting at 9:30 a.m., then go to her job as a children’s theater teacher. After work, she would pick up her mother and drop her off at home; she had to be back on campus by 6:00 p.m. for theater rehearsal, which typically finishes around 10:00 p.m.. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, she has the same schedule, but the 9:30 a.m. class is replaced with an online class.
Despite this overwhelming routine, Simpson explained her management of the very little free time she does have. “I really like to wake up early and go to bed late, and find some quiet time for myself to work on outside things,” she said. She also suggests setting deadlines and avoiding cramming.
Pigeon Lee-Spera graduated from high school in 2023 and is majoring in dance and sociology. She expressed that she has always struggled with math: both on account of her ADHD and preference for the humanities.
“I see it as a personal failure when I don’t understand something,” Lee-Spera said. However, she still trudges onward in order to fulfill her General Elective credit requirement and eventually transfer to a four-year university.
Lee-Spera says that as she matured, she has learned to give herself grace when it comes to her mistakes. She recognizes her faults not as personal, but as an invitation for her own improvement. In addition to reaching out to the Center for Students with Disabilities to receive academic accommodations, she attends office hours to maximize her potential for success in the class.
The life of a college student is very demanding: both socially, academically, and in terms of setting oneself up for success in the future. Sylla, Simpson, and Lee-Spera demonstrate that confidence, preparedness and a willingness to seek help can maximize one’s academic success.