Stress is a typical complaint you hear within college students today. College is the time of lot’s of decision making, responsibilities, and best of all–hard classes. Typically, college classes give a lot of assignments with too little time to turn them in. Many students have terrible time management skills and leave things for the last minute resulting in distress(Robotham,2008). Or some students may just not have time at all(some students have jobs!) and end up even missing out on sleep which can reduce their ability to deal with an increase of stress. Students are often pressured into getting very good grades, or else they won’t get into a good graduate program! And this is where the fear of failure comes into play, it becomes so scary that it causes unnecessary emotional and physical distress(Robotham,2008). Another great factor to stress is the transitioning to college. Many will leaving home, be forced to have their own responsibilities (which some may believe they aren’t ready to take on), leave important people which can lead to social and personal issues (Robotham, 2008). Last but not least, the problem most college students face–financial issues. Students take part time jobs to be able to keep paying tuition. Some colleges are very expensive and some students have to work harder than others, depending on their family status in order to stay in college. Stress as a whole can have it’s good effects because, stress enables you to act effectively in an emergency but it mostly has it’s negative effects: Students with stress often feel negative feelings such as guilt, anger, anxiety, worry, they can lose or gain weight, they can harm themselves or others, and even turn to things like smoking or alcohol.
Alcohol absolutely has a big impact on stress because some tend to increase their consumption of alcohol as an outcome (Robotham, 2008). In a survey, it concluded that nearly one fourth of the students reported that they did poorly on a test/project due to alcohol and drugs. Another interesting study shows a correlation between drinks per week and grades: Those that drink about 3 drinks per week are “A” students, those that drink about 5, are typically “B” students, those that drink about 6 are “C” students and the more that is consumed the more the grades seem to drop even more (Journal of college counseling, 2002).
In Intersections, Alex seems to have an alcohol addiction. At the beginning of the play, he is described to be working on HW and drinking a beer. Alex then begins to tell his sister (Louisa) about his struggles in school, that taking six classes is overwhelming for him. Alex wants Louisa to understand that this is not what he wants to do but Louisa insists he finishes the semester because his family has been paying tuition for him in order for him to finish and help the family out financially. They seem to be a struggling Hispanic family (Alex and Louisa say a couple of Spanish terms which indicates they are Spanish speakers) that is making their children work and go to school to bring stability to the family. Majority of hispanic immigrants come into this country struggling and looking for jobs in order to live a better life than they did in their native country. Louisa proceeds to complain about Alex drinking everyday and that’s when he admits he drinks because he’s not happy, he says he’s stressed. Just like it’s been said before, some students turn to things such as Alcohol abuse when they are stressed out and Alex seems to be one of them. Alex is struggling in school which could be a combination stress and alcohol consumption.
Citations used:
Robotham, David. Stress among higher education students: towards a research agenda. Vol. 56, Springer Science+business Media B.V., 2008, pp. 737-41, file:///Users/a/Downloads/Stress_among_higher_education.PDF. Accessed 7 May 2017.
Sullivan, Michael, and Ed Risler. Understanding college alcohol abuse and academic performance: selecting appropriate intervention strategies. Vol. 5.2 , Journal of College counseling, 2002. Accessed 7 May 2017.
I emailed you the expectation and the people that I peer reviewed were Moe, Naja, and Nawal.
My audience reading this are mainly college students and possibly some who drink and do drugs because of stress. One thing I would want them to know before reading this is I didn’t mean this towards all college students, I understand not all of them drink and do drugs. Also, I do understand that it’s not always the student’s fault if they do bad in school, it just could be they are dealing with a bigger problem that’s affecting their studies and they often have trouble finding anyone that can help out. To anyone who is dealing with drug abuse, alcohol abuse or just stress, the only thing I would want you to know is that you are not alone, many people out there are dealing with the same issue. Stress is difficult and the only thing I would like you to get out of this essay is to get help if you need it. Speak up about it because there is nothing to be ashamed about; Stress is a logical reason to why you would turn to these things, I understand the pressure to do well and be at the top of your class is great, and I also have a hard time trusting people when I tell them about these issues. You can turn to resources such as your school’s wellness center or any community counseling that helps you with addiction, if you don’t feel comfortable telling anyone. I’m sure anyone can see where I’m getting at because every time you see an addiction commercial or TV show that had an episode based on this you would expect a message after the credits that goes something like this: Do you know someone that has an addiction? call this number at 1(800)-Addiction Hotline Anyone would probably make an inference that the person writing this would want them to get at least some help. This essay was pretty self-explanatory so I think everything I put on here, anyone else writing about this same topic probably has down on their paper. There was this one part where I incorporated this study that if you drink about 3 cups a week you are most likely an A student… I mean, I did not know this and probably a lot of people don’t know his either so it’s probably the most unique I have gone.
I learned that stress can affect you a lot in school performance and the more you drink the worst your grades can get. One thing that helped me to write this essay was the comments of my peers and professor, and seeing other people’s POV in their essays. The only I can say about this research was that, this wasn’t so bad and the articles weren’t boring this time. If I had another week to work on this paper, I would have tied it in even more to the play. I would have talked more about the play. The last thing I would like to tell my audience before they dive into the play is I hope you can understand to where I’m getting at.