I initially believed that college has a negative effect on everyone’s mental health, that every student I interviewed would say that college has mentally exhausted them. For some people I interviewed that was the case, but for others, college has a positive impact.

When asking how college affected their mental health, one girl said, “it’s definitely been positively affected… I actually feel a lot happier because I’m on my own and I can do my own stuff… I guess the whole idea of not being controlled.” This was something I did not consider, how some people thrive off the freedom that they are given. The escape from the control held over her at home was due to going to college. Her mental state improved as she got more independence. When I asked a boy the same question, he also said that college has a positive effect on his mental health. He stated that, “I went to catholic school and there were a lot of rules, and at college I feel like I have more opportunities to learn different kinds of stuff.” He also enjoyed how freeing college was, and how he can choose what he wants to learn and what he wants to do.

However, sometimes the stress caused by college can be too much for people to handle. Another girl described the effect of college on her health to be negative. She states, “It has caused a lot of stress, and it feels like a lot of pressure.” In this case, the freedom of college was overwhelming. The stress of being independent and having to figure out what to do in life was too much. When she went to college everyone expected her to have everything figured out, and that was not the case. She’s trying to satisfy everyone’s expectations, and this has become detrimental to her health. One person said, “I feel like it is different when you were depressed before college because then it’s just like, okay, I’ve done this before I can handle it now.” This was a common theme with the people who said that their health benefitted before going to college. Life was always worse before college, and now they had a chance to control what happens to them. They can be whoever they want to be, and that is mentally freeing.