THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20, 2014
PAGE 19A
MENTAL HEALTH
Services offered to combat back-to-school stress
PAIGE STINGLEY
@paigestinglev
Stress is a perfectly normal thing, especially in college. However, it stops being normal when it starts to affect your mental health.
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, more than 40 percent of college students have felt an above average amount of stress within the past year. but a majority of students did not seek help or request accommodations from their school.
"It is very common for students to feel overwhelmed when transitioning to college." Christian Vargas, licensed
psychologist and outreach coordinator at the University, said in an email. "It's important for students to focus on having a routine that includes self-care and time to do things that they love."
It is not uncommon for freshmen to feel more overwhelmed at the start of school because on top of their studies, they are having to learn to live on their own, do their own laundry and make their own schedules, among other things. They are given so much new information that it often feels like it is too much to handle.
"There are so many things happening during the first weeks, between Greek life and
Most universities have several health and psychological services to offer. According to NAMI, concern of the stigma associated with seeking mental help is the leading reason students do not use those services.
"Mental health issues aren't uncommon and can
clubs and athletic events, to school and figuring out the bus schedule and finding where your class is," said Andrew Martino, a senior from Overland Park. "It's important to find your own balance of handling the stress from school and being able to give yourself a break to go hang out with friends and meet new people."
prevent a student from being successful both personally and academically," Vargas said. "It is important to address mental health issues as soon as they are experienced to receive
"Students should focus on building their own care plan to prevent vulnerability to mental health issues."
CHRISTIAN VARGAS
Licensed psychologist,
outreach coordinator
proper treatment.
According to Guy Napolitana, M.D. from the
proper treatment."
University School of Medicine around 27 percent of college students experience some time of mental health problem.
The Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS)
The Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) offered at the University provide students with individual and group counseling, along with psychiatric services for students who need support to achieve their goals.
"Students should focus on building their own care plan to prevent vulnerability to mental health issues such as eating a healthy diet, caring for physical ailments, exercising, having good sleep habits and avoiding drugs and alcohol," Vargas said.
The staff at CAPS can provide full assessments and make treatment recommendations. If the student needs additional help outside of the CAPS services, CAPS will find them help within the community.
Students are encouraged to seek help when they first feel like they may have a problem because waiting could potentially make it worse.
"The stress and the anxiety become a problem when you begin to feel like you can't handle it on your own, and when your grades and health are slipping." Martino said. "When it begins to hurt your success, you have a problem."
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Edited by Kate Miller
ONLINE FROM PAGE 1A
and specifically on top of that now the content they are also learning." Rossomondo said.
Beginning in the fall semester, Spanish classes using Acceso will shift from a more traditional classroom to a computer lab in Wescoe Hall redesigned to more easily
She said the normal price of a textbook package for two semesters can cost $300 more than many students would want to pay. Using Accesso, students are only required to spend $40 per semester for an online grammar workbook.
MARCUS PACCAPANICCIA Junior from Shawnee
"... with Acceso ... there's no textbook to check out, so I think it depends on how well it's going to be taught ..."
accommodate the program.
Rossomondo said instructors made the decision to shift Accesso into a computer lab setting after a long period of assessing how the material could be better adapted to student's needs. She said after
The new classroom is comprised of six workstations, each equipped with a large, flat screen monitor and wireless keyboard and mouse. Instructors will be able to project student work from any station onto all other monitors, including large screens at opposing ends of the room. Students can also hook up their laptops to the stations and display their work at either large screen.
asking students what they thought about the program, it became apparent the traditional classroom wasn't working as well as it could to facilitate the type of learning instructors wanted to do. In addition, Rossomondo said transferring student's in-class content from their laptops to flash drives was showing to be logistically difficult.
"We were ending up losing 10 or 15 minutes of class time, in a 50-minute class period, with all of this switching — and that's just not a good use of time." Rossomondo said.
"This coming semester with Acceso, it's just the MySpanishLab. There's no textbook to check out, so I think it depends on how well it's going to be taught in the classroom," Paccapaniccia said.
— Edited by Sarah Kramer
Accesso material includes news articles, which discuss social issues in Spanish speaking countries, clips of native speakers from different geographical locations, almanacs for exploring significant cultural issues to the region and videos mixing Spanish narration with text.
Marcus Paccapaniccia, a junior from Shawnee enrolled in a Spanish class for the fall semester, said that he believed students learning with Acceso would benefit from moving from a more traditional classroom setting to a computer lab. He said he thought there would probably be more homework involved with the change, but students would get more practice out of it.
NATIONAL
FOLLOW @KANSANNEWS FOR NEWS UPDATES
A structure burns along Highway 41 in Oakhurst, Calif., on Monday, Aug. 18. One of several wildfires burning across California prompted the evacuation of hundreds of people in a central California foothill community near Yosemite National Park, authorities said.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Some evacuees of Calif. fire allowed to go home
ASSOCIATED PRESS
OAKHURST, Calif. — Firefighters gained ground Tuesday on a blaze in the foothills near Yosemite National Park, allowing some of the 1,000 people who fled the flames to return to their homes.
Nearly 1 square mile in Madera County had been scorched, revising earlier estimates that it had spanned about twice as much ground, state fire officials said.
Flames erupted Monday near Oakhurst, a community of several thousand about 16 miles from a Yosemite entrance, forcing more than 1,000 people to evacuate and thousands more to prepare to leave their
homes. Some residents were allowed to go home, but sheriff's spokeswoman Erica Stuart could not provide an estimate of how many.
Crews contained 30 percent of the fire, aided by humidity and calmer winds. Additional firefighters had been brought in to attack the blaze fueled a day earlier by gusty winds and dry brush.
"We're not seeing the fire expand like we thought," Madera County Sheriff John Anderson said Tuesday.
The blaze that destroyed eight structures did not affect Yosemite National Park, and the road leading visitors to the park reopened Tuesday. It once threatened about 500 homes, but the risk has been minimized, officials say.
The fire comes amid California's third straight year of drought, creating tinder-dry conditions that have significantly increased
the fire danger around the state and sent firefighters scrambling seemingly nonstop from blaze to blaze. Evacuated residents in Oakhurst said they had braced for the worst.
"There is nothing you can do when a fire is raging," said Clement Williams, 67. "You just have to flee. It's a real sinking feeling."
Williams and his wife, Gretchen Williams, 63, were trying to get information about the fire and their home from officials. They spent the night at a nearby hotel.
Oakhurst was smoky, and businesses downtown were closed as the fire burned about a mile away. Flames were not visible from the downtown area as they moved away from town toward a nearby reservoir and resort community, state fire spokesman Chris Christopherson said.
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