Is Your Future Worth Your Mental Health?
“How sure are you that you want to be a doctor? How badly do you want to graduate in four years?”
I have wanted to become a doctor since I was three years old, but the only time I have ever faltered was when I was presented with that question. Walking into academic advising can feel like a battle. You have to defend every choice, opinion and goal you have. You are always told that advisors are there to help you, so you should utilize their help, but you have to find the right person. When I responded by saying that I would really like to be a doctor and I would really prefer to graduate in four years, I was overjoyed when she replied, “alright, let’s figure this out then,” and started drawing up a plan.
“Graduating in four years is not worth your mental health.”
In almost every student’s mind, college should take four years; this is why I wanted to be done in four years. The more I listened to my advisor in that meeting, the more I realized that I had no specific reason that I needed to graduate in four years. As we planned classes that I needed to take to graduate during my advising appointment, I saw how many challenging classes I still have left to take. My respect for the advising department increased dramatically when my advisor calmly explained that I did not need to be done in four years. She even offered me multiple alternative schedule options. I never thought that the advising teams in college would care more about a student’s mental health than their courses. She stressed that I did not need to finish in four years and put that extra weight on my mental health. In the long run, we both decided that an extra semester to space out my classes was much more beneficial for my mental health.
My previous experience with my freshman orientation advisor was not helpful at all. She told me there are no such thing as hard, weeder classes and tried to place me in 18 credits of all science and lab credits. From then on, I assumed that because it is their job to know classes and help people graduate, advisors would not care about the person beyond just the schedule. This was really discouraging and prevented me from making any more appointments until recently. It was amazing to feel validated by my advisor and to have someone who could help alleviate some of my anxiety.