ON CAMPUS
campusreview.com.au
Rise
grind
groan
repeat
Many students struggling
with daily stress.
Mike Larsen interviewed by Kate Prendergast
I
n contrast to the sanguine, laughing
faces of students you see on most
university marketing flyers and websites,
a uni student’s life is no walk in the park.
24
It’s not supposed to be: the purpose of
enrolment is to be challenged, after all.
While Studiosity CEO Mike Larsen
acknowledges that a little stress can be a
good thing, he believes that students today
are in a new kind of struggle town.
Research commissioned by the online
study support service shows that 77 per
cent of students are stressed at least once
a week, with almost a quarter feeling
stressed daily.
One thousand domestic and
international Australian university students
were involved in the study, ranging in age
from 18 to 50-plus. They attributed the
stress to various primary causes, including
the amount of study (46 per cent), the
costs of studying (18 per cent), the
difficulty of subjects (14 per cent) and the
increase in responsibilities they experience
when starting university (14 per cent).
Studiosity commissioned a similar study
last year, and while students also listed the
amount of study as their biggest stressor
(34 per cent), paying for a degree was
only fourth highest (8 per cent), which
suggests a tightening of financial pressures
among students in 2019. The data on
challenging course content and dealing
with responsibility was largely unchanged.
Respondents to the latest survey
were given the opportunity to provide
recommendations on how to combat
stress. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most
popular response was to extend exam and
assessment completion time.
“Most units start giving assignments
around the same time, forcing students to
feel stressed, as they have too much work
that needs to be done in a short amount
of time,” said one 19-year-old respondent
from NSW.