UF Researcher: Booming Economy May Add To College Students’ Stress

April 27, 1999

GAINESVILLE — With cap-and-gown season about to get under way, a University of Florida researcher says a booming economy is yet another item to add to the list of stresses today’s college students are feeling from such things as the fear of AIDS, dysfunctional families and binge drinking.

The healthy employment market means more career opportunities for graduates but can bring with it some unhealthy expectations to land a great job, said James Archer Jr., a UF professor in counselor education and co-author of the new book “Counseling and Mental Health Services On Campus.”

“The economy has been so good during the last few years, you’d think it would take a little pressure off students in terms of worrying about what they’ll do once they graduate,” Archer said. “But we still have many students who don’t know what they want to do, and this adds to the pressure to get on the bandwagon and pick something.”

One culprit for the angst is the ongoing effort to make college more efficient by making students decide upon majors too early, Archer said. This advisement of students to plan careers from the very beginning sometimes overlooks the opportunities many need to explore, he said.

“We used to have an attitude that you come to college and you had some time to look around and decide what you were interested in,” he said. “I don’t think that exists as much now.”

Yet there continue to be students who need more time to choose a profession, Archer said. “We’ve always had the problem of a number of people winding up in careers that they don’t really want,” he said. “This problem is exacerbated by asking students to choose a major and a career prematurely.”

Many colleges and universities are dealing with this problem by offering a diverse assortment of intern and cooperative experience programs, Archer said. “The more we give students hands-on experience the better,” he said. “If you’re majoring in accounting, there’s no substitute for interning in an accounting firm to really get a sense of what it’s like.”

UF, for example, offers hundreds of internship and cooperative experience programs for students in nearly every major, said Wayne Wallace, director of the Career Resource Center. “For students, there is a maturing process that occurs,” he said. “It increases their self-confidence, as well as their knowledge about themselves and their work. They tend to come back from these experiences more focused on their studies.”

Just as today’s students face a changing job market that is part of a new global economy, they have been influenced by rapid social changes, Archer said. The younger generation grew up in families with a higher incidence of divorce, and a larger proportion have experienced eating disorders, alcohol or drug abuse and other social problems, he said.

Often, students already have received counseling in high school, so by the time they reach college they are accustomed to asking for help, Archer said. With more students on some kind of psychoactive medication, counselors must learn to coordinate their services with the patient’s psychiatric treatment, he said.

“The truth is that during peak times of the year, there simply aren’t enough counselors to meet college students’ needs, and counseling centers all over the country are having waiting lists,” he said.

The Internet may be able to fill some of the gap, he said.

Through chat rooms and support groups, students can communicate with other students about their problems, although this usually is not a substitute for professional help, Archer said. Students also may click on the college counseling center’s Web page for tips on dealing with specific problems, such as parents’ divorcing.

One-to-one counseling also is online, though it has limitations. “For instance,” he said, “if a person online is suicidal, the counselor may not know where they are or who they are. This makes it impossible to intervene if necessary.”