Academic Wellness

How's School?

Bring self-care to school with these academic wellness strategies. 

School Is More than Just School 

Let’s be honest. How’s school? can be hard to answer. Do you talk about grades? Friends? Do you focus on the things your stressed about or the things that excite you?

Complicated as it may be, it’s an important question to consider. School is linked with your health, happiness, and overall wellbeing. This is known as academic wellness. 

Academic wellness refers to your satisfaction, performance, and all-around relationship with school. It includes satisfaction in your program, performance in classes, relationships with instructors, and progress toward graduation. At it’s best, academic wellness gives you a sense of drive and purpose. You feel accomplished and capable but also balanced in the role school plays in your life.  And at its worst, we can feel stressed, overwhelmed, and burned out.

Tips for Building Academic Wellness

Burnout is characterized by a sense of exhaustion, cynicism, and lack of accomplishment. It can occur in situations of chronic stress or pressure and infrequent positive feedback or opportunities for achievement. When you add the heightened expectations, comparisons, and increased time being "on" that students often experience to the picture, it's no surprise that increasing numbers of students describe themselves as overwhelmed with all they have to do. Burnout is a consequence of these conditions that can impact performance and satisfaction in your work. 

Learn how to identify and prevent burnout to boost your academic experience with these articles and tools:

A mentor is someone you trust as a guide through college, work, or life. A mentor can be a person you have a relationship with, such as an upperclassman or faculty member, but you can also look to resources like books, podcasts, or membership sites for expert guidance.

How to find a mentor:

  • Pay attention to who you like to be around and those you'd like to be like.
  • Look for mentoring programs in campus clubs and organizations.
  • Browse for books, podcasts, or TED talks that speak to you. It's your chance to hear someone's best thinking on a specific topic.
  • Build a mental team of advisors and ask yourself what they would suggest when you're in a challenging situation. 
  • Create a mastermind with peers. Consider the people in your life with a similar drive and how you could support each other toward your goals. 

Get to know your mentor:

When you find someone, make a point of getting to know them on a deeper level. You might drop by their office hours or ask to meet briefly over coffee to learn more about their journey. Continue to invest in the relationship, but let it grow organically. Putting too much pressure on the situation can leave both parties feeling frustrated or burned out. 

Explore these articles and resources to learn more about finding a mentor or starting your own mastermind group:

Build a sustainable schedule to stay on track. Begin with consistent sleep, wake, and meal times. From there, block out times for class, study, and leisure. Be sure to include time for your top priorities for school and wellness. 

Write it down.

To reduce the mental toll of juggling everything in your head, use a calendar or planner. Of course, these tools are only as useful as your consistency using them, so set aside regular time for updates and review. 

Make a schedule.

To keep all the small, random tasks from overwhelming you, make a list and schedule a time for them to be complete. It can help to set aside a regular time every week for taking care of random or daily living tasks. Schedule non-academic due dates just as you would exams to keep them from catching you by surprise. Include things like membership fee deadlines, car maintenance, and medical appointments. 

Explore these articles and resources to learn more about taking charge of your time and schedule:

Take a step back to assess how you learn and study best. Pay attention to the way you naturally understand and remember new concepts and the way you recall information on an exam. Notice how you use your senses when learning. Do you get more out of listening to instructions vs. reading them? Do you like the be hands-on in your learning? What about studying with others?

When you get to know how you learn best, you can tailor your study skills to better meet your unique needs. Explore these tools and resources to support how you learn best:

Make the most of your learning style.

Make your notes and planner work for you.

We've been told "there are no stupid questions," but that doesn't always make it easy to reach out for help when we're struggling. Many students feel reluctant to ask questions in class or attend office hours for fear of being judged or criticized by classmates and instructors. Asking for help is hard sometimes, but it's also an important step in improving your academic wellness. In fact, research indicates that early corrective feedback is a key factor in mastering many academic tasks. 

Explore these resources for tips on asking for academic help and building a closer relationship with your instructors: