(should be Psychology related answer) Speaking at a University’s graduation cere
ID: 85913 • Letter: #
Question
(should be Psychology related answer) Speaking at a University’s graduation ceremony, Professor Robson compared college and university graduates with adults who are less educated.
She correctly noted that people with higher-education degrees pay more taxes, vote more frequently, engage in more volunteer activities in their communities, and are less likely to go to jail than less-educated adults. The professor concluded that colleges and universities obviously do great things for society. How might you reasonably challenge the way the professor reached her conclusion?
Explanation / Answer
Answer:
Professor Robson's comments are true but might have some challenges.
The economy is gaining strength and employment is once again rising. While this is generally good news, but it also gives fuel to those who maintain that a college education isn’t necessary to employment. Cost-value comparisons that question the investment in a degree at today’s prices are increasing in frequency.
Substance abuse; domestic violence; emotional, physical, and sexual abuse; and mental illness plague some families. At an alarming rate, young people enter higher education with dysfunctional family backgrounds that evoke stress and trepidation in students.
An estimated 7 million women and 3.5 million men can be diagnosed with major depression in the United States; similar numbers are diagnosed as experiencing dysthymia, or minor depressive symptoms. College students are twice as likely to have clinical depression compared to people of similar ages and backgrounds in the workforce, according to Wayne A. Dixon and Jon K. Reid in 2000.
Depression constitutes a problem of enormous personal and social significance, and its impact on American college students is indisputable. Depression interferes with intra- and interpersonal processes, academic and social integration, and retention. Some depressed individuals may evince a hostile, uncooperative, and self-criticizing interpersonal style eliciting negative responses from others. Poor social skills and social acuity are thought to make people vulnerable to the onset of depressive symptomology and other psychosocial problems pursuant to the experience of negative stressful life events.
Alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana are the most commonly used drugs on college campuses, but this use encompasses drugs of varying forms including amphetamine, caffeine, cocaine, hallucinogen, inhalants, opioid, phencyclidine, sedative, hypnotic, anxiolytic, steroids, and polysubstances. An essential feature of substance abuse is a maladaptive pattern of substance use leading to recurrent and clinically significant impairment or adverse consequences.
Substance use is associated with increased absenteeism from class and poor academic performance. The majority of injuries, accidents, vandalism, sexual assaults and rape, fighting, and other crime on- and off-college campus are linked to alcohol and other drug use. Unplanned and uninhibited sexual behavior may lead to pregnancy, exposure to sexually transmitted diseases, and HIV/AIDS. Driving under the influence, tragic accidents, alcohol poisoning, overdosing, and even death from accidents, high-risk behaviors, and suicide carry tremendous, life-threatening implications for all involved. Tobacco use is associated with severe health risks and illness, physical inefficiency, and even death.
Unprecedented unemployment + underemployment rates for new graduates produced by the Great Recession has changed student behavior – likely unalterably given the affordability crisis. As a result, traditional arguments that “college prepares you for your fifth job, not your first job” increasingly fall on deaf ears; students know that if they don’t get a great first job, they’re much less likely to get a great fifth job. This means colleges need to do more than just increase career services budgets; they must ensure students are equipped with the technical skills employers increasingly require for entry-level positions. Job pressure to students affecting their mental health.
Comprehensive initiatives that incorporate the domains of psychotherapy, treatment, prevention, outreach, academics and learning, and career, enable institutions of higher education to sufficiently ensure that services are meeting the diverse personal and psychological needs of students.
Psychologist Sharon Kirkland-Gordon said,An increasing number of college students are arriving on campus with psychological issues or developing problems once they're in school.
Several best practices could help solve the problem, said Kirkland-Gordon. Because more students are arriving at college already on medications, mental health prevention and intervention efforts need to start in high school, for example. She also recommended that centers hire more staff to handle increased demand, train faculty and staff how to recognize students in distress and what to do, enlist student groups to help with social media campaigns, create wellness and coping programs and establish medical leave policies that include mental health.
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