Honors College Art & Science of Emotions Fall 2017 (12:00 p.m.) Sadness Journal | Page 29

College and Sadness at Three Levels
of Experience
Isaac Springer
It’s not uncommon to see or hear college students talk about experience of
sadness or depression. Now that my two younger sisters are both in college, I
thought it would be interesting to ask about this link and see how the relationship
changes based on time in college and other differences.
I first asked my youngest sister Emma about her experiences. Emma just
started this fall at the University of Michigan, planning to go into biomedical engineer-
ing. She told me that college does not directly cause sadness, but instead causes
stress, mostly in the form of academics. While stress does not equal sadness, she
stated that stress can be overwhelming and lead to sadness. This sadness can come
in a couple of ways; stress and obligations mean that there is less time to do what
one enjoys, and that in turn can lead to a sense of dread about the future. The future
that is imagined under stress is one of constantly striving towards a goal of happi-
ness, but never seeming able to get there, always having some sort of obstacle or
work always in the way. This image definitely can cause sadness in the form of
dread or worry; not knowing if you’ll ever be happy is certainly frightening and hard to
deal with, and can be seen as a consequence of the stress caused by college.
Another thing that Emma had mentioned had to do with living away from
home. In the beginning of the semester she said that there were several times where
she was missing her home and her family. Stepping out of the familiarity of high
school and into the unknown of college is different for everyone, and she felt a certain
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