Student Well-being during Finals Week

[00:00:04] Speaker A: My mic is on. My mic is on. Monsie, tell us what you had for breakfast today. [00:00:14] Speaker B: I had a bagel with cream cheese and wayava and strawberry jam. Yeah, it's really good. It's an HEB brand jam. And it's David. [00:00:25] Speaker A: Okay. Do I just need to turn everyone up? Yeah, I mean, it's helpful to sort of project got you. Use outdoor indoor voice, if that makes sense. [00:00:44] Speaker B: I got back from a probate yesterday, so my voice isn't the greatest. [00:00:48] Speaker A: Oh, is that right? Yeah. Make sure yours is on, first of all. And, yeah, you kind of do have to sort of lean in a bit about the width of your four fingers from your mouth. You can kind of move around more naturally, but yeah, you got to be fairly close. Okay, so I sent you the list of topics. I'm basically winging it. Yeah. I want this to kind of be as spontaneous seeming as we can get it. If there's anything you want to do over, I don't even have to pause the recording. You could just keep going. It's going to be edited first so that it's a blog, but also so that it's a podcast later. So yeah, see, it doesn't have to be perfect. All right, well, how's everyone doing today? [00:02:02] Speaker C: I'm doing pretty yeah. [00:02:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:04] Speaker B: Friday is always my reset days since I don't have, like, one class. And I take up my car and I go out and do errands. [00:02:12] Speaker A: Okay, which mic is yours, Monsie? Because I may want to turn you up, but I think you're the second one. Hold on. Okay. All right, repeat what you just said. [00:02:35] Speaker B: Fridays are usually my reset days. [00:02:37] Speaker A: Okay, that looks good. [00:02:39] Speaker B: So I take out my car from the garage, and this is usually a day where I run errands and clean and such. [00:02:46] Speaker A: Okay. So we're at the end of the semester, and it probably felt like it went by in an instant. Yeah. Well, let's linger on that point a bit. I don't know. Thinking about the start of the semester and to now, is it just startling how quickly you're at this point? [00:03:19] Speaker B: Yeah, at the beginning, I guess I feel like it went by fast, but now that I'm the holidays really crept up on me. Before I knew it, I was like, oh, I have to go home for Thanksgiving break, and now I have to leave in, like, a week for Christmas break. It just seems very fast. But looking back on the start of the semester, it's been a long time. I feel like such a different person than who I was at the beginning of the semester. [00:03:47] Speaker A: Okay, how would you have described yourself the beginning of the semester? [00:03:51] Speaker B: Okay, well, I definitely wanted to get more involved on campus, so I took up a leadership position in one of the nonprofit orgs, and I rushed a sorority this semester. [00:04:05] Speaker A: Yeah, right. [00:04:05] Speaker B: So that kept me busy, very busy. So I think it's just a lot of I came into the semester with like, I guess less drive than I have now. [00:04:18] Speaker A: Is that right? [00:04:18] Speaker B: Yeah. You have to really schedule and know when and what to prioritize when you have a lot of stuff going on. And in a way, it's helped me a lot just like, having a schedule and just knowing what's coming up and what's expected. [00:04:35] Speaker A: Okay, so, Carissa, what have you got to say about the semester tempo as you've experienced it? [00:04:42] Speaker C: I feel like everything runs on different timelines. I remember when I first joined the speech team, we have a once a week meeting, and on my second ever meeting, the coach just vaguely mentioned I had been there for a week, a single week. And I was like, I fully thought it'd been a month, but school seems to be rushing by super fast and it's like there's no one rhythm for the semester. For me, in the start of this year, I was experimenting like anything and everything. I tried Ene. Great program. Not for me. I also rushed a what program is that? Ene is events and entertainment. Okay. They do a kind of like, different things on campus. [00:05:33] Speaker A: Okay. [00:05:36] Speaker C: I tried to join a Greek.org and they're great people. I just was like, I don't know if I want this time commitment. I'm a very do an activity person, and I was spending a lot of time just like, sitting and chatting and I love sitting and chatting, but not as like an obligation. [00:05:53] Speaker A: Right. [00:05:54] Speaker C: But yeah, I feel like things have settled down a little bit towards the end of the semester. [00:05:58] Speaker A: Okay, so you have this last hurdle in front of you. So what looking back have been, I guess, the most significant challenges that you have each encountered during this semester? Actually, it doesn't have to be confined just to this semester, but I don't know. However you might define the arc of your time here at UT, what have emerged for either of you as just things that are on your mind a lot or thorns in your side. [00:06:36] Speaker B: So I think I could speak a lot on this because I would definitely say this is the first semester where I felt like I had a community here. It's my first semester of my junior year and it's taken me this long to find people that share the same beliefs as me values just like attitudes. Overall, because UT is a very white predominated school and to find Mexicans, it was difficult for me and I've multiple times tried join other organizations, but at the same time, it just didn't, I guess fill that need of having your own community. And I always had a homesickness really bad around this time, especially when you're stressed and when you can barely take care of yourself during finals. I just would want to go back home and that would affect me in such a negative way academically. But now that I felt my sorority sisters and such, I feel like it set a better rhythm. And now I have people to go to, and you just have your group here, and I find myself being homesick a lot less. I can even say I don't want to go back home for this winter break. [00:08:03] Speaker C: That's really nice. [00:08:05] Speaker A: Yeah. And did you ever see yourself rushing? [00:08:09] Speaker B: Absolutely. Not to discredit the greek community, but I just didn't see myself as a greek person at all, but a friend of a friend of a friend that I knew really encouraged me, so I went for it this semester and really, really don't regret it. I'm glad that I went through the process. [00:08:37] Speaker A: Okay, carissa, you're up. You're a freshman, correct? [00:08:45] Speaker C: I am. [00:08:45] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. How much is your head spinning or has been? [00:08:51] Speaker C: Oh, just absolutely rotating. I'm in been. I feel like I stuck the landing coming into UT in the way that I intended, which is, like, I didn't immediately fall on my face, and I'm proud of that. I think that's an accomplishment, being incredibly genuine. But yeah, there has been a challenge in finding a community. I find myself scared of black UT. It's not for any legitimate reason. I just keep getting in my own head about, like, oh, is my hair. [00:09:29] Speaker A: Not good enough to be well, I promise you I can't relate to what you're saying. [00:09:36] Speaker C: His hair is incredible, for the record. [00:09:42] Speaker A: No. Okay. I don't want to derail you with my own stuff, but yeah, when I remember being a college student and yeah, I can see as small a community as what you're referring to is yeah, I see it. It can have its intimidating aspects as yeah. [00:10:05] Speaker C: And, like, the parts of black QT I've interacted with in a significant like, they're wonderful people at bypaca. Like, all of it's been a wonderful experience, and I'm just trying to gather the guts to engage with it more because it is something that's really important to me. And I think that's where the fear of failure comes in, because there's only one black UT. But, yeah, I found a great community with the speech team. Those are wonderful people. And I remember the very first time I went into our team room and just kind of chatted with people there, I was like, okay, cool. This is where I'm supposed to be. I tried a few different things. This is, like, the big thing. And it was a massive relief to find that. And I'm also, like, a really forgetful person. [00:10:54] Speaker A: Again, I can't relate. [00:10:58] Speaker C: Yeah. I have this one class where sometimes the assignments are on, like, an hour or two hour turnaround, and the amount of assignments for that class I have not done, because it's really hard for my brain to stay directly on top of everything at every moment. So it's been up and down in that regard. But I feel like, for the most part, things have been. [00:11:20] Speaker A: Well, okay, what tend to be your go to as far as coping strategies or just things that you do to get out of your own head? Monty, why don't we start with you? Again? [00:11:38] Speaker B: I mean, personally, I usually shut down in moments like these, and I tend to isolate a lot. So purposely making plans and going to socialize, even if it's just like studying with a person at a coffee shop, making that effort really helps me because I isolate, and it just goes further and further, and I say to myself, for more and more people, and I stay in my head more. So, again, that I've been planning more this semester, it's helped me mentally as well, like, keeping that balance between academics and socializing and taking care of myself and whatnot. [00:12:25] Speaker C: Yeah, I was a military kid, so a lot of my friends are online. But it's one thing where I'm like, when I'm in my head, those are people I reach for, especially now, because they just make I've known them for years, and it feels steady to be able to go back to this community that I've had. So, yeah, I have to make myself get out of my dorm. My dorm all dorms are too small. You cannot. The other day, I was shocked by how much better I felt after just, like, walking through a Target and buying fruit snacks. I didn't even tend to buy anything, but I was like, oh, I need fruit snacks. And I came back to my dorm, and I was just like, that was such a breath of fresh air. I feel like it's really easy to feel like UT is so big and try to find this tiny little place within it to stay in, but things like that can make a big difference. [00:13:15] Speaker A: Okay. When I was a student, with regards to whatever, I would tell my folks about what I was dealing with. Only sometimes was I really candid about that. Other times, I gave them a very amended picture of what was going on, and usually only just focusing on the academics, not the existential reality of life in college. So how much is that the case for you, that you're able to sort of give very detailed updates to your people about what's going on with you? [00:14:03] Speaker B: So it was very clear since my freshman year of high school that I mean, freshman year of college that I had developed some anxiety, and coming from a Hispanic household, it's really not welcome. Mental health is not a thing there. You just suck it up, and you got to go with it. So it took a lot for me to find resources myself and not feel guilty about doing that or not feel like not disregarding what I was feeling. So since my first semester of freshman year, I've utilized a lot of the UT mental health resources and have found out a lot about myself and a lot of things. I was also diagnosed with mental disorders, which was very new. Very new. Yeah. And yeah, my parents did not react the way I wanted them to, so I just shut that off. I stopped telling them about what I was doing because one aspect was that they were undermining what I was feeling, and the other aspect is that they were worried about me. They're not here. It's a five hour drive to my hometown. So I stopped letting them know for multiple reasons. I didn't want them to worry because it was very evident that it took a toll on them when I was telling them about my mental health. But also they didn't care. [00:15:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:56] Speaker C: In my family, it's this weird back and forth because I have always been a person who's, like, needed to be very conscious and aware of my mental health since elementary school, and my siblings to an extent, too. So my parents sort of got this crash course when we reach that age where we're sapient, and it's a strange conversation to navigate because also an extended family is like, it's not a thing. And so it's this bubble of communication, semi communication, that we hold up. I've had a habit since, I think, middle school, of just not telling my parents anything unless I needed to be driven somewhere and drove my mother up the wall. She'd be like, where are you? What are you doing? And I'd be like, I was just like, was that a competition? Whatever. And so I don't keep them as updated as I could about my situation, really. But I do have people, like, mentors outside of my parents, who I tend to reach for the most. I remember just today, I sent one of my mentors a text. We're like, my GPA is not going to be the best this semester. And the first thing he said was in all caps, don't panic. I needed that. [00:17:23] Speaker A: Okay, so, Toby, I want to get you into the conversation now. I'm going to have to pass you the microphone. Maybe you could start just by kind of introducing yourself and saying what your role at UT is and just general thoughts and feelings, reactions that you have while listening to Monsie and Carissa. [00:17:48] Speaker D: So hi. My name is Toby LeBlanc. I am one of the care counselors in the McComb School of Business and also in Jackson Geosciences. And the care program is an extension of the Council Mental Health Center. We're embedded counselors in the colleges, and it's been so much fun to listen to both of you. And a lot of what you're talking about is a lot of what I hear in my role as a care counselor. So we've been talking about stress, we've been talking about finals. But what's amazing to me is to listen to how much of what we're talking about is not finals and not necessarily school stress. Right. It's finding your identity, finding your community, finding your rhythm, finding out about whatever mental health things need to be addressed and taken care of. So it's all this extra stuff around school. This is what we hear and care the most. And to me it's pretty important what you all are talking about. This is the era of your life where identity, you're figuring it out. Up until this point, your community was kind of your co author on your identity and you had people that you've known, maybe your entire lives. And then you get here and you got to find your own people and you've got to kind of start authoring your own identity. And you got to do that while you go to school and take classes and take tests and do those types of things. So all of that, I mean, listening to you all talk through that, it's tracks with what I know. And it always impresses me as far as feelings go and the way I react. It's always impressive to me. And honestly, it's why I love being a care counselor. It's why I love working at UT, is this stage of life is it's really hard, but it's also really magical that y'all are doing these amazing things while managing a really hard course load and learning really important material, really important information. [00:19:49] Speaker A: Okay, so you mentioned finals, so I do actually kind of want to bring the conversation back around to that. So I'm going to sort of disclose that my worst semester as an undergrad was actually supposed to have been my last semester. I went into a pretty profound spiral where it was a few different things, but mostly kind of just my own lax habits finally catching up to me and then just I was a little bit overloaded with courses and it was a domino effect. I want you to consider somebody in that kind of a situation, toby they sense that they're spiraling. Maybe it's not too late to salvage something from the semester, even though, like straight A's out of the question. What is maybe the one thing, the one bit of advice that you would have for someone in a situation like that that maybe you probably suspect they're not already doing. [00:21:13] Speaker D: Just one thing? I would say that quality over quantity is maybe something to focus on because whenever we are in a stressful situation, we tend to focus on how much time we need to spend on it, how much work we need to do. And we start piling on lots of hours, we start piling on lots of schoolwork and trying to do all the things for as long as we can to see how much can get done. And as we do that, our minds get tired, our mental health starts to suffer, our stress levels go up, which means that it starts to impact performance. Our focus goes down, our motivation goes down, which now once that happens, you're spiraling because the more your motivation goes down. The less you can do, the less you can do, the more stress you feel. The more stress you feel. There we go. So focusing on quality over quantity. What I mean by that is focus on doing your best work, which means maybe studying for 6 hours. Your last 4 hours aren't going to be the same as your first two. So study for two. Take a break. Go do something that recharges you, that walk around Target to buy fruit snacks. Maybe go do something that reduces your stress level and it will increase your performance back up. You may not get the straight A's like you said, but what it can do is keep you afloat for long enough to make the grades that you need to make to get through the semester. In fact, I go as far with a lot of my students as talking about how to build self care into your schedule. So instead of just thinking about self care as when I'm done, I'll go to the park or I'll go to Target or something like that? No, I'm going to go to Target at five this afternoon before I study. Because I know it clears my head. Or I'm going to go for this walk when I wake up in the morning because I know when I get to class I'll be in a much better headspace to pay attention or something like that. I'm going to schedule a nice long Netflix binge this weekend because I need a soft landing after those finals. So being able to focus on the quality of your work, notice when the work is feeling good, when your brain's clicking and you're getting things done, and when it's not, that's when it's time to start building in self care time. [00:23:28] Speaker A: So I guess we can go back to our two students. How are you finding the finals and all the just yeah, how, how much? Is it its own problem? Or is it more along the lines of what you've already said? [00:23:48] Speaker C: I have been really lucky. I don't think this is particularly common to have most of my classes not have final exams. During finals week, we have final exam, but they're like equally weighted to some other exams. And I do have one final exam, but it's like an essay, so in my head it doesn't count. And it feels like this part of the year could be a lot more stressful than it is for the tests. So I'm a little bit nervous about future semesters. But even just like rounding out the semester, seeing the rest of my grades come in really quickly compared to the rest of the semester, it's a lot at once. And so yeah, I think I hadn't even realized that's what I was doing. Just taking that time to be like, okay, I'm stepping away for like 2 hours because I can't right now. I think I did feel not great about taking that time away from my studies. I feel like I can get in the habit of being like, okay, I'm behind, therefore I have to keep paying this time debt, even if it isn't getting me anywhere. But actually taking the time to step back has kept me afloat this semester, and I'm hoping that'll last. I'm fairly sure they'll last until winter break. [00:25:23] Speaker B: I like to say I wake up every morning and I ask myself, will I finish my finals or my finals finish me? Yeah, finals are definitely filing. I have three finals on the same day. Yeah. So it's been rough. I have to purposely, like Karissa said, take moments to step back and just not do work because it just will not be productive if I just sit there. If I keep myself sitting there, nothing's going to get done unless I step away. So I think learning when recognizing when to do that has been really important around these times. And this is my fifth final semester. Fifth semester was finals. So I've gathered all that I've can over the semesters and realized that what helps me is to study with people and to treat myself after studying. And that's what's keeping me a little sane. But yeah, it's definitely the most I've done all semester. [00:26:41] Speaker A: Yeah. What classes are you all taking? [00:26:44] Speaker B: I'm taking two psychology courses, Abnormal and Developmental. I'm taking Evolution Physics, a physics lab, and a microbiology lab. [00:26:56] Speaker C: I'm taking fun little classes. I'm taking Intro to Ancient Greece, native American History of the Black Power Movement. Our class called our Global Backyard. And I think I'm forgetting one, but I won't remember it. [00:27:11] Speaker A: Okay. I was an English major and so, yeah, y'all know, I needed to get at least one humanities person in the conversation. Thanks for that carissa. Abnormal Psych. I did take that. I really loved the case studies. [00:27:32] Speaker B: Very interesting. [00:27:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Harrowing in some cases. Yeah. Identity has come up during this conversation, and I'm really glad that it has. And so, yeah, I guess a follow up would be but kind of like what Carissa sort of hinted at. There's like a sometimes kind of burdensome dance you have to do with respect to your own identity. But then, Monsie, you also mentioned that what a game changer it was for you to find a community that was responsive to aspects of your identity. And just how much of, I guess, an awakening has that been for the both of you? That we tend to individualize mental health quite a bit still. [00:28:43] Speaker B: Yeah. So I definitely would credit my mental health to a lot of me not going out and finding people. I knew there was organizations and I knew there was people out there that were like me. It's just that anxiety didn't let me meet new people. It's like, what if I'm not Mexican enough? What if I find you weird? And that stuck with me for a long time. Finally, after two years of therapy, I have gained the courage to go out and meet people, and I don't regret it at all. [00:29:22] Speaker C: Yeah, it's been really interesting. One of the things I've been trying socially recently is to just stop masking so much. I am not in a little itty bitty high school anymore where there's that one group of people, I have options. And so one thing, I've been trying to just be me in the way that I want to be me and let people take it or leave it. And I found that it invites people who also just want to relax, and it's been really nice. One thing, identity wise, that was not something I anticipated was whether or not I'm an adult. I have the very much immigrant. You're an adult, you're not an adult yet. You're an adult. You're not an adult yet. Sort of back and forth like within my family. And it's been nice especially to find people my age, people like one or two years older than me who are just like, well, we're handling all of these things and there's probably, like, a spectrum of adultiness, but we're getting really close. I have a job. I will pay taxes this year. That's pretty adulty. So it feels like I have the right to claim my identity in a way that I didn't feel entirely before. [00:30:50] Speaker B: Okay, yeah, I agree with Carissa a lot. I consider myself a baby adult. One year my parents were making me lunch and driving me everywhere. The next, they dumped me off here and I had to figure out everything myself. And I got to give myself a little bit of a little bit of credit sometimes because I have a job, I'm in organizations, I go to school full time, I pay my rent, I cook for myself, have to clean for myself, have to do all these things that my parents would do previously. And going from this big shift, it's difficult, but I have to remember that it's my first rodeo here. I still got to learn a lot of things. [00:31:42] Speaker A: Okay. So, Toby, what kinds of things do you find yourself kind of saying a lot to students, particularly during this time of year, that maybe can be kind of distilled down into general tips and advice for whoever happens to come across this piece. [00:32:05] Speaker D: This time of year. As we've been talking about this whole time, there's so many different stressors. You're dealing with all the life stressors on top of all the final stressors. And the most difficult part about this time of year around finals is they're all coming back to back. You got three in a day, Monsie. There's not a lot of room for that self care I was mentioning before. Which is why just to kind of double down on what I was talking about earlier, scheduling it in for yourself, making deliberate intentions, deliberate actions to try and just relax yourself. Whether it be a big one where you just decide to stay in bed all weekend because you haven't slept enough. Or it's something small like, you know what? I need to step away from my studies for a couple of hours, make some dinner, and just not be a super overachieving student for a little while. So the thing that I find myself talking about the most with students is just make sure that you're taking breaks. Remind yourself that you are a human, a carbon based organism that has limits. Your brain is an organ that gets tired like every other organ. And your job is to respect it when it gets tired and give it what it needs so that it can rest and recuperate. And make sure that you're also being maybe a bit more predictive with it because being reactive, sometimes that's too late. Like waiting until you're completely stressed out, on the verge of a panic attack, that's not where you start doing anxiety prevention. It's more like, okay, I have three finals that day. I'm going to go to bed early the night before to actually get good sleep. And then the next night I'm going to go out and be with my community just to kind of let loose, get rid of some stress. So being real deliberate about your stress management, treating yourself like an actual human being and not an achievement automaton, those are usually the things I cover the most. [00:33:56] Speaker A: Okay, so Toby, you seem rather young. I don't want to make any assumptions about how long you've been at this. Has there been any kind of shift that you have noticed in either the quantity or quality of mental health support that you find yourself being asked to provide over time? [00:34:22] Speaker D: Well, I'm happy to say I'm in my 15th year of doing this at UT, so I've been watching students for that long. And what I have noticed is the pressure seems to be going up for students that over the course of the last 15 years, students feel increasing pressure on being able to achieve, to be the best, to do as much as they can, to get as far as they can, as fast as they can. And I'm still not quite sure what it's about. I don't know if it's this idea of scarcity, like, maybe there's not as many good jobs out there or this idea that if I don't get to the best of what I'm doing, I won't get to do what I want. I don't quite know what's pushing it along. But I do notice that students feel a lot more pressure to be achieving, to constantly be working and feeling like often they're behind that's. The one that I see the most is that students constantly feel like no matter where they are, even if they're out in front, I'm behind, I should be doing more. So that's honestly a conversation that we end up having, first of all, debunking that. In a lot of ways, being able to stop and look at the ways we are adulting, look at the ways we are, how much we've progressed just in the short amount of time that we've been here, that it was a week, but it felt like a month. Well, why did it feel like a month? Because so much growing up happened during that time and I've been doing so much during that time. So that's part of what we spend time talking about, but also kind of debunking the future too, because I think there's this idea that we're all going to have it together at some point, that we are going to turn into these adults and we should be making it all make sense. And because it doesn't all make sense right now, we're failing or we're falling behind. But in reality, as a card carrying adult, I'm still getting it together. I'm still pulling it together. I'm still figuring it out. Most days are my best guess, hopefully not clinically, but just in general. That's something that I talk about a lot with students, is just we're all still learning. Even when you feel like you should have arrived, you're still arriving. [00:36:31] Speaker C: Can I respond to that one? It was a conversation I had with a mentor of mine earlier in the year when I was like, I don't know if I am an adult or when I should be an adult. And she's like, Girl, you're not kidding. You're never going to get there. And it was really reassuring to hear, I think, because especially coming up through grade school and college, every milestone feels very like, check a box, it's done very achievement based. And then coming into college, especially, there's nobody to tell you how good you've done or that you've done good or that you're the best. One of my biggest stressors was like, I couldn't see my grades all the time. I had no idea how I was doing in half of my classes. And so it's just like, you have to just choose a direction and keep walking in it. I said to the same mentor, like, I'm making so many decisions every single day in the first two weeks. It just like, asked. I was beat, I was tired. But I think it's something that you kind of grow into a little bit. You don't grow out of the difficulty. You just grow into being aware that it's going to be difficult. [00:37:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I lost my train of thought, but yeah, a lot of my stressors is because I feel like time is running out. Like, in my head, I'm practically 40 and I should already have everything together. I should already have my life together. Why am I not looking at houses right now? Like, crazy stuff like that. And I'm not even graduated college. So just like, remembering that there is no destination, I guess everyone's going to end up somewhere differently and it will work for them. [00:38:32] Speaker A: I'm practically 42 from the other side of the okay, well, so this needs to be a podcast later. So I'm going to do the intro that I should have done when we first started, and then I think maybe we can wrap it up after that. So I'm here with Toby LeBlanc. I'm here with Toby LeBlanc. He is a counselor at the Counseling and Mental Health Center at UT, also the care program at the University of Texas at Austin. Monty Lopez and Carissa, forgive me, Caesar and Carissa Caesar, both currently student workers for the Hogg Foundation, as well as undergraduate students at the University of Texas. Welcome to all of you. [00:39:31] Speaker C: Hi. Yeah. [00:39:34] Speaker A: Okay, so this is not a therapy session, but you happen to have one here, so this is your chance to ask any one question that you would want to ask Toby. It doesn't have to be anything particularly profound, just something weird that recently happened. Doesn't even have to involve you personally. Just anything that you might want to want to pick his brain about while you have him here. [00:40:04] Speaker C: I definitely know what mine is. Okay, so coming into this year, I have a Fig, which is a freshman interest group, basically a ton of different about 19 other students I'm all taking most of my classes with. And we have a little group, me, where we communicate and dish tea about our classes. It's not a professional space. And one thing that I've noticed throughout this year is that so many people are so stressed all of the time, like making the assumption that their professors are going to eat them if they don't come in for their homework done or something. And I guess that would be my question to these freshmen who are coming in who don't really know the UT resources or how to gauge the social space, especially those coming from really competitive high schools, the mindset that puts people into what would you say to those people if you had the chance? [00:41:03] Speaker D: Well, the first thing I do is make sure and get them acquainted with as many resources as possible. The counseling mental health center is a great resource. The care counseling program are the embedded counselors they're going to be in every college. So the good part about the care program is the care counselors know their college and they know the culture within the college. And so students can talk to their care counselor and not only get a mental health perspective, but just even how the college culture that they are, the culture of the college that they are in, how it folds into their mental health experience and how it may inform or impact it. I'd also trying to get them acquainted to any of the other campus resources that we have. We have so many for our students, but I honestly think being able to kind of put the students back into their story we talked earlier about how we come from these competitive high schools where all of our grades are in these checkboxes that we can look at. I'm doing this, I made this grade, I'm going to this class and moving forward. And you come to this university and things look very different. And then even more stressful is when you leave this university, it looks way different. Where there are no grades, there are no text boxes and things like that. So whenever I'm meeting with a student who may be talking about the stress of college and how they feel overwhelmed by their classes, is just kind of putting them back into the story and saying, hey, you're just starting on this journey. You're learning college. That it's kind of like your unofficial extra class. You have all your hours, but then you have getting used to college. It's knowing when to wash your clothes. It's knowing how to get yourself up in the morning, get dressed. If you've never been the person to kind of motivate yourself through that. So just kind of putting them back into their story and saying, look, you're doing all this stuff and there's lots of room and space to grow and to move around that. If you don't do well in a test, there's going to be another test. If you are struggling with something, there's going to be a resource. So just putting them back into their story, putting them back into their world that they're in, and letting them know that there is help if you need it and you're going to get better. [00:43:19] Speaker B: Second, I'm so sorry, I totally forgot my question. Okay. I'm blanking out. Okay, hold on, hold on. I know it was there. It's right here. Oh, yeah. So this is a very prestigious, like, college. Many of us are in the top 6% of our high school class. Most of us overachievers trying to get those really good grades. What advice would you have for someone who was always an overachiever and always had those top scores and coming to college? It just wasn't the same story. [00:44:09] Speaker D: I have this conversation so often. This is one that I'm very familiar with. The answer I would give is very, very similar to the previous question that to put you back in your story, you were a big fish in a little pond. Now you're a big fish in a big pond full of big fish. And the thing to remember is which pond you're in and why you're in this pond. You're here because you're the best of the best of the best. You were playing pro level in the minors, and now you're playing pro in the pros. So that means if you are just now being challenged at the level at which you're struggling, that means this is where you're supposed to be. This is the level at which you're supposed to be working. Back there, you weren't being challenged here. You are also the achievements that you have. They've gotten you as far as here and then in your next level, achievement is going to come from a much different place. It's going to come from how hard you work. It's going to come from the relationships that you build. Nobody's going to be checking grades in your yearly evaluations from your supervisor. There will be no grades. So being able to start validating yourself from a different place, because that's what I think a lot of students who are high achievers, we've developed so much validation. We've developed so much of how good we are from those grades that we make to the point where sometimes we don't look at any other places at our lives to validate and say, I'm enough here. I'm enough here. So being able to start validating your work ethic, how intelligent you are, how innovative you are, how you just figure things out, how resilient you are, being able to validate those other parts of yourself, help you to kind of step away from needing the grades to tell you how good you're doing. [00:46:01] Speaker A: Okay. Toby Monsie Carissa, thank you so much for taking the time to contribute to this experiment. I really do appreciate it. [00:46:13] Speaker C: Thanks for having us. [00:46:15] Speaker B: Thanks. [00:46:18] Speaker D: Thank you so much. [00:46:20] Speaker A: All right. That was awesome. Yeah. [00:46:24] Speaker B: All right.