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Opportunity U spoke with Carla Franich, Program Director, Outreach and Community Relations for the Counseling Services, to talk about how students can help relieve stress during finals season.

Opportunity U: Midterms and final exams are some of the most stressful times of the semester for students. What are some common issues that you see come up for students during finals season?

Carla:  Just finding it hard to manage their time and juggle all their responsibilities and feeling confident in the materials that they're studying, so that they can do well on their finals.

Making certain they have an adequate number of hours of sleep is another big one. We know that's very important, particularly when we're cramming for our midterms or our finals.

How to help manage exam stress

Opportunity U: What are some things that students can do on their own to help relieve stress and manage their time?

Carla: Finding opportunities to integrate self-care into their daily routine. Self-care is very individual for the person. We try to encourage students to find some strategies that work well for them. We could encourage students to, for example, meditate. But for some, meditation isn't a very helpful strategy. And so what we do in counseling services is try to expose students to some of the strategies that they could start to implement.

Opportunity U: What are some resources that are offered here at the counseling center that can help students, not only during finals but throughout the whole semester?

Carla: Automatically what students think about when they think of counseling is individual therapy. But we also offer group therapy, so the opportunity for students to actually practice some of those skills because that could be very validating for people to recognize that they're not alone.

We offer a lot of workshops on building skills on common topics that we see, like healthy relationships and maintaining your motivation. We give a lot of workshops on different strategies so that we teach students to feel empowered. Our students are resilient, and oftentimes, we just give them the skills and coach them on how they could use these skills.

Our ultimate goal is to destigmatize mental health, because needing mental health care is still very stigmatizing. We want to make students aware that it's okay to reach out for help and to change that culture on our campus because we can all use a little bit of help. Ultimately, what we want to create on our campus is this culture where we support one another.

Opportunity U: You talked a little bit about group therapy and workshops. How often do those happen?

Carla: We have weekly workshops and weekly group therapy sessions, and students are always able to participate. Just to maintain the integrity of the group, we do ask that students are clients first. Then we also offer support groups, where students could just drop in and they don't have to be a client.

Campus resources to manage anxiety 

Opportunity U: What are some other resources on campus outside of Counseling Services that students can use if they're having a hard time during finals?

Carla: We collaborate a great deal with the Disability Resource Center. We make certain that if there are accommodations that students are eligible for, they connect with the DRC to put those accommodations in place. We collaborate a lot with the  to just make sure we're addressing all of the needs of the students, whether that be mental health or medical health. The support in the students' academic centers, so that partnership with the academic advisors, is really important. We want to just make sure that students have a variety of different avenues that they can go to for support.

Opportunity U: If someone was a prospective student looking at colleges, what are some on campus resources that you'd recommend people look for?

Carla: Ultimately, what I want to really highlight for students is to be aware of the opportunities that students have to connect with each other. A really important component for students is to feel like they have a space where they connect with others that have similar interests, or they just feel like they have that group of people that they can rely on.

Prospective students should look at what their interests are and identify opportunities for them to pursue some of those interests while they're here on campus. When we're looking at all of the beautiful opportunities that students have to learn about themselves, learn about the world, learn about the role that they can play and impact the world, we want to allow students the opportunity to learn about themselves. Maybe that's trying something new or exposing them to a new way of thinking to ensure that they leave their academic career knowing a bit more about themselves.

Opportunity U: Can you think of any specific opportunities to connect that we have here on campus?

Carla: We offer lots of , and I just love it because if there's something you're into there's probably a club or organization that aligns with that. Just go and check it out, because that's why we’re here, right?

Opportunity U: Where can students find the counseling center and those resources that they need?

Carla: We have a lot of information on the Counseling Services website. We have a great deal of information listed there, including our groups and the way they can get scheduled for a first appointment.

Opportunity U: Thank you for taking the time to talk to us today. It’s good to know that there are so many resources that students have to help them during stressful testing seasons.